Three Years Without Roe: How Arkansas Is Protecting Life
Tuesday marks three years since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion decision.
Thanks to that ruling, abortion in Arkansas is generally prohibited except to save the life of the mother.
Arkansans also have proven time and again that they are deeply pro-life, and lawmakers have rejected efforts to legalize abortion.
The state legislature has passed good measures this year that further clarify those pro-life laws.
And Arkansas has given millions of dollars to help support women with unplanned pregnancies and promote maternal wellness.
One question that remains unanswered is how many women from Arkansas are traveling out-of-state for abortions, and how many are ordering dangerous abortion pills online. Nobody knows for sure, but the data paints a mixed picture.
The CDC’s most recent abortion numbers are from 2022, and they show some Arkansans traveling to Kansas, Illinois, and other states for abortion. But Roe v. Wade wasn’t overturned until mid-2022 — so those numbers aren’t complete.
The Journal of the American Medical Association conservatively estimates more than 300 children were born in Arkansas in 2023 as a direct result of the state’s pro-life laws. That means Arkansas’ pro-life laws are certainly saving lives.
However, the State of Kansas reports 728 women from Arkansas had abortions in Kansas during 2023. That’s an increase from previous years.
And anecdotally, pregnancy resource center directors have told us stories of young women coming to them after ordering abortion pills online.
Based on the numbers that are available, it seems safe to say that far fewer abortions are being performed on women from Arkansas now than three years ago, but at this time there is no way to know exactly how many.
All of this underscores that while Arkansas’ pro-life laws are doing a lot of good, we need to work hard to make abortion unthinkable as well.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
Shielded from Justice: Abortionists Hide Behind State Laws
Last week the Associated Press reported how pro-abortion “shield laws” help abortionists in other states violate pro-life laws in states like Arkansas.
In 2022 the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade — effectively letting Arkansas prohibit abortion except to save the life of the mother. State law prohibits abortion drugs from being mailed or delivered into Arkansas. However, some states — like New York and Massachusetts — have enacted “shield laws” that protect abortionists who send abortion drugs across state lines. If an abortionist in one of these states mails abortion drugs to Arkansas, the state’s “shield law” prevents the abortionist from being prosecuted.
The A.P. writes,
Dr. Margaret Carpenter faces a felony charge in Louisiana for supplying abortion medication through the mail to a pregnant teen in that state. The patient’s mother also faces criminal charges. A Texas judge fined the same physician $100,000 after the state accused her of prescribing abortion medication for a woman near Dallas.
So far, the prosecution hasn’t progressed thanks to New York’s shield law, which has protected Carpenter from extradition to Louisiana. But other telehealth centers operating in states with similar legal protections for abortion providers are watching closely.
Abortion drugs don’t just kill unborn children. They also harm women.
A recent study by the experts at the Ethics and Public Policy Center shows abortion drugs are at least 22 times more dangerous than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration labeling indicates.
The study — which relied on all-payer insurance claims data from 2017 to 2023 — found nearly one in nine women suffered serious health complications like sepsis, infection, and hemorrhaging as a direct result of the abortion drugs.
Abortion drugs simply should not be for sale in America — and abortionists certainly should not be free to mail them across state lines.
Last year Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin issued cease-and-desist letters to New York companies advertising abortion pills in Arkansas in violation of Arkansas law. The A.G.’s office later reported that the advertisements for abortion pills stopped as a result of their cease-and-desist. As we said at the time, that is good news — but it is clear that more work needs to be done to stop these dangerous drugs.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.