Group Raises Nearly $350,000 to Put Abortion on the Ballot in Arkansas
The group working to enshrine abortion into the Arkansas Constitution raised $321,461 last month, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Arkansans for Limited Government has raised a total of $348,506 according to a financial disclosure it provided the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Cheryl and Edward Huffman of Blytheville were the group’s biggest donors, giving Arkansans for Limited Government $150,000 in April.
Democratic Rep. Denise Garner, of Fayetteville, and her husband Hershey Garner, a physician and chair of Arkansans for Limited Government, donated $50,000 to the group in April. Steve Williams, a small business owner from Beebe, also donated $50,000 to the committee.
If passed, the amendment would write abortion into the state constitution, allowing thousands of elective abortions in Arkansas every year.
The amendment does not contain any medical licensing or health and safety standards for abortion, and it automatically nullifies all state laws that conflict with the amendment. That jeopardizes even the most basic restrictions on abortion.
The amendment contains sweeping health exceptions that would permit abortion through all nine months of pregnancy in many cases.
The amendment also would pave the way for publicly funded abortion in Arkansas by changing Amendment 68 to the Arkansas Constitution that currently prohibits taxpayer funded abortion in the state.
Arkansans have generally opposed taxpayer-funded abortion, but taxpayer-funded abortion through all nine months of pregnancy could become a reality in Arkansas if the abortion amendment passes.
To date, multiple organizations have come out against the amendment, including:
- Arkansas Right to Life
- Family Council Action Committee
- Choose Life Arkansas
- NWA Coalition for Life
- The Arkansas Committee For Ethics Policy
- The Catholic Diocese of Little Rock
- Saline Decline to Sign
- Stronger Arkansas
- Stop Abortion On Demand
- Students for Life of America
You can download a copy of the abortion amendment here.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
Legal Battle Continues Over Law Protecting Children From Harmful Materials in Public Libraries
The federal lawsuit continues over Act 372 of 2023, a good law that generally prohibits giving or sending a child harmful material that contains nudity or sexual activity.
The Arkansas Legislature passed Act 372 last year to protect children from harmful material and to eliminate exemptions for public libraries and schools in the state’s obscenity statute. The law also clarifies how library patrons can work to remove objectionable material from a library’s catalog.
Act 372 was slated to take effect last August, but a coalition of libraries in Arkansas led by the ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging portions of Act 372.
Last July U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks blocked two sections of Act 372 — Section 1, which makes it a Class A misdemeanor to give or send a child harmful sexual material that contains nudity or sexual activity, and Section 5, which clarifies how library patrons can work to remove objectionable material from a library’s catalog.
The ruling did not affect Sections 2, 3, 4, and 6 of Act 372, which eliminate exemptions for schools and libraries in the state’s obscenity statute, address inappropriate material in public school libraries, and permit the disclosure of certain library records.
Last week the libraries who filed the lawsuit asked Judge Brooks for a permanent injunction blocking Act 372. Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin’s office is defending Act 372 in court.
Act 372 isn’t just about library books—it’s about protecting our children.
Family Council has heard repeatedly from people who are deeply troubled by obscene and inappropriate children’s books that some librarians have placed on the shelves of their local libraries.
For example, the Jonesboro public library has been at the center of multiple controversies over its decision to place books with sexually-explicit images in its children’s section and for failing to adopt a policy that separates sexual material from children’s content.
The library in Jonesboro even went so far as to post on Facebook that it isn’t the library’s responsibility to protect kids from obscenity. Following the controversy in Jonesboro, voters opted to cut the library’s millage in half.
Other public libraries in Arkansas have included graphic children’s books in their catalogs and failed to separate sexual material from children’s material as well.
Some of the people who testified publicly against Act 372 last spring signaled that they want to be free to share obscene material with children at a library. That simply isn’t right.
Libraries ought to be held to the same standards as everyone else when it comes to giving harmful or obscene material to children.
Public libraries are supposed to be for everyone.
Families should be able to take their children to the library without worrying what their children might see.
And taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize graphic novels that depict explicit images of minors engaged in sexual acts.
Act 372 is a good law that will help protect children in Arkansas. We believe higher courts will recognize that fact and ultimately uphold this law as constitutional.