U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Review AR Abortion Law

Abortion, , ,

Today the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a law Arkansas passed in 2013 preventing most abortions after the twelfth week of pregnancy when a fetal heartbeat is detected.

The law was partially struck by a lower court in 2014; the Attorney General’s office petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review and reverse the lower court rulings against the law, but the Supreme Court has decided not to do so.

Specifically, the lower court rulings treated the provisions of the law dealing with informed-consent prior to an abortion as constitutional; however, the portions preventing most abortions after the twelfth week of pregnancy were ruled unconstitutional.

A hearing on the 2013 law at the U.S. Supreme Court would have set the stage for the court to reexamine past cases dealing with abortion, including Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Roe v. Wade—both of which we have written about here.

The U.S. Supreme Court cannot ignore this issue forever. The “viability rule,” which makes it difficult for states to regulate abortion procedures prior to the point an unborn baby becomes “viable,” was established in the Casey decision. It is, as Attorney General Rutledge argued, an arbitrary rule and lacks a firm foundation. As state laws and advances in medical science continue, the “viability rule” will be challenged. Eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court will have to reevaluate it. For now, however, the U.S. Supreme Court has chosen not to do so.

Today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court is not related to the two lawsuits Planned Parenthood is involved in against the State of Arkansas.

READ MORE

Arkansas Ranked Fourth Most Pro-life State

Abortion

LITTLE ROCK, AR – Arkansas has been ranked by Americans United for Life as the fourth most pro-life state in the nation.

On January 12, the Washington, D.C. based pro-life organization released its eleventh annual report ranking the states on how well they protect the safety of women seeking abortions and on the passage of laws that protect the unborn.

The top five states include number-one Oklahoma, followed by Kansas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Nebraska. This marks the eighth year in a row Arkansas has ranked in the top five. For the first time, Americans United for Life also recognized Arkansas as their number-one All Star State for passing seven pro-life laws in 2015.

Family Council President Jerry Cox released a statement saying, “Finally, there is a national ranking that Arkansans can be proud of. Several years ago, we set a goal of making Arkansas the most pro-life state in the nation. The Arkansas Legislature, the Governor, and the Attorney General have done yeoman’s work in creating a culture of life that every Arkansan can be proud of. This high national ranking and the fact that Arkansas’ abortion rate is near the lowest it has been since the 1970’s prove the efforts of so many for so long are finally paying off.”

The seven pro-life bills recently passed by the Arkansas Legislature include a law that prevents state funding of abortion clinics; a law that requires a 48-hour waiting period before an abortion can be performed; one that strengthens the requirements concerning abortions performed on minors; and a law that requires providers of drug-induced abortions to follow FDA protocols.

Cox noted that while Arkansas needs more pro-life laws on the books, the public needs to get behind volunteer efforts that operate a network of pregnancy and adoption centers established to help women and girls with unplanned pregnancies. “Being pro-life means a lot more than being against abortion,” Cox said. “Being pro-life also means taking good care of the elderly in nursing homes, providing homes for foster children, and viewing every innocent human life as sacred.”

###

READ MORE

Powerball, Gambling, and Moral Failures

Arkansas Lottery,

John Stonestreet and our friends at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview released an excellent commentary today highlighting the “moral deficit” involved when it comes to Powerball and state lotteries in general.

With Powerball fever sweeping the nation, Stonestreet writes,

“Now, if all that was happening was a bunch of people throwing away a couple of bucks on astronomically-long odds, it wouldn’t warrant comment. But that’s not the only thing going on here. As ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser recently said on his radio show, it’s clear that ‘the lure of easy money affects the segment of the population you wish it [that] it didn’t affect.’

“He’s referring to the disproportionate impact of state-sponsored lotteries on those who can least afford to play them: the lower-middle class and the working poor.”

Stonestreet goes on to cite statistics from John Ballor and others showing that Americans in the lower income brackets spend the most–both in terms of number of dollars and percentage of income–on lottery tickets.

Stonestreet refers to this phenomenon as a moral deficit, saying that society is essentially passing the cost of government programs along to the poor through our state lotteries.

As John Ballor wrote recently,

“All of this is taking place in a system of legalized gambling that is monopolized and promoted by those in political power. Where state governments are supposed to be looking after the welfare of their citizenry, the commonwealth of all the people, the establishment of a lottery has in fact betrayed the citizenry.

“What begins as a well-intentioned plan to provide for the needs of the people — education funding for example — very often becomes just another source of revenue for a voracious state treasury. Lotto revenue is often diverted for new purposes through legislative and bureaucratic chicanery.”

The negative effect gambling has on the poor is one reason Christians ought to oppose gambling–but it is not the only reason. Pastor John Piper recently offered seven reasons not to play the lottery, including:

  1. The lure of easy money has spiritual consequences.
  2. Gambling is poor stewardship of our resources.
  3. Gambling, ultimately, is a “fool’s errand.”
  4. It preys on the poor.
  5. The system requires most people to lose money.
  6. There are better ways to make and manage money.
  7. State-sanctioned gambling undermines virtue.

Of course, we have written repeatedly about the poor management and negative effects of the Arkansas Lottery. We have even analyzed, roughly, how much money we believe the average lottery player in Arkansas might be spending on lottery tickets each year. As we have said all along, when it comes to gambling, the harm outweighs the benefit, plain and simple.

You can read more about Piper’s seven points here.

You can read John Ballor’s column here.

You can read John Stonestreet’s commentary here–or listen to it below.

[audio:http://www.breakpoint.org/images/content/breakpoint/audio/2016/011316_BP.mp3|titles=Powerball and the Moral Deficit]

READ MORE