Family Council Participates in Joint Press Conference Opposing Planned Parenthood’s Regional Abortion Facility Near Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri

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Above: Planned Parenthood’s new abortion facility in Southeast Kansas.

On Tuesday Family Council participated in a joint press conference with Operation Rescue and Students for Life opposing Planned Parenthood’s new regional abortion facility near Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri.

Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion-provider. The organization owns facilities in Little Rock and Rogers — but those facilities are blocked from performing abortions thanks to Arkansas’ pro-life laws.

However, the Planned Parenthood seems determined to promote abortion to women from Arkansas.

Family Council recently learned Planned Parenthood had secretly acquired a facility in Pittsburg, Kansas — a town of some 20,000 residents — within driving distance of Northwest Arkansas.

The new location in Southeast Kansas will let Planned Parenthood promote abortions regionally to women in Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma — states that all have very strong, pro-life laws.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Family Council’s Assistant Director David Cox delivered the following remarks:

We believe every innocent, human life is sacred from the moment of conception until natural death. Abortion hurts women and families, and it takes the lives of innocent unborn children. That is why we oppose Planned Parenthood’s pro-abortion agenda.

Pro-lifers in Arkansas are committed to ending abortion by passing pro-life legislation and by supporting women and families. Since 2022, the State of Arkansas’ Pregnancy Resource Center Grant program has distributed $2 million in funding to organizations that provide material support to women with unplanned pregnancies. This year, Family Council, Arkansas Right to Life, and other organizations worked with the Arkansas Legislature and Governor Sarah Sanders to enact a $2 million appropriation that will support maternal health and fund local pregnancy help organizations across Arkansas.

Planned Parenthood has criticized this highly successful grant program, and Planned Parenthood’s decision to open this Pittsburg abortion facility shows its goal is to perform abortions on women throughout the Four State Area. Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri all have passed good, pro-life laws protecting women and unborn children from abortion. This facility will promote abortion to women from these states.

We believe women and families deserve better, and we are urging citizens not to support Planned Parenthood’s pro-abortion agenda.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Allowing Abortion in Cases of Rape and Incest Hurts Women and Unborn Children

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The following is adapted from a column published in Family Council’s March 2024 update letter.

Supporters of the failed Arkansas Abortion Amendment have said the amendment is necessary to allow abortion in cases of rape and incest. To be clear, the amendment actually would have written unrestricted abortions into the Arkansas Constitution. Even so, many Arkansans understandably have serious questions about making exceptions for abortion in cases of rape or incest.

Rape and incest are horrific crimes, and the perpetrators of these crimes need to be punished as current law mandates.

A woman who is raped is a victim in every sense of the word, and public health officials have reported in the past that approximately 2%–5% of all abortions are performed because of rape or incest. In light of that, it’s easy for some elected officials to justify abortion in these situations.

We all wish we could take away the pain that victims of sexual assault experience, but there are serious problems with permitting abortion in cases of rape or incest.

Below are five points to consider.

  1. Abortion Does Absolutely Nothing to Prevent Rape or Incest. Despite its liberal state abortion laws, California saw its number of rape cases increase from 13,439 in 2020 to 14,435 in 2021. Legalizing abortion in cases of rape or incest does not protect women from sexual predators. It doesn’t help law enforcement arrest rapists. It doesn’t make it easier for prosecutors, judges, or juries to convict a man who rapes a woman.
  2. Abortion Actually Helps Conceal Rape and Incest From Authorities. In 2016 abortionist Ulrich Klopfer admitted to the Indiana Medical Licensing Board that he once performed an abortion on a 10-year-old girl from Illinois who had been raped by her uncle. Dr. Klopfer openly admitted that he did not report the crime to law enforcement. He let the girl go home to her parents who knew about the rape and had decided not to press charges. As far as anyone can tell, that girl’s uncle was never brought to justice. Indiana’s Medical Licensing Board was shocked to hear Dr. Klopfer speak so openly and so indifferently about what had been done to this girl. Abortion helps conceal evil crimes like this one.
  3. Abortion Does Not Heal the Harm That Rape and Incest Cause. Rape and incest cause lifelong trauma, but abortion doesn’t heal the wounds that rape or incest leave behind. Abortion takes the life of an unborn baby, and it carries serious risks for the woman. Abortion is not a quick fix. Its consequences are very serious.
  4. Rapists Have No Legal Claim to Their Victims or Their Victims’ Children. Under Arkansas law, a rapist has no legal claim to his victim or the children of his victim. That means a woman or girl who becomes pregnant because of rape can keep the child or put the child up for adoption, but she does not have to consult the rapist or share custody with him. Arkansas law is very clear on that point. Additionally, state courts can take other appropriate action to protect victims of rape or incest.
  5. The Unborn Baby is Totally Innocent. An unborn boy or girl has no control over how he or she was conceived. These are living human beings. Rape and incest are evil, and the woman who is raped is an innocent victim in every sense of the word. But the unborn child is innocent as well. Is it right to kill an unborn baby because the baby’s father was a rapist?

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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ACLU of Arkansas Supports Pro-Abortion Rule in Federal Court

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On Tuesday the ACLU of Arkansas announced it is leading a coalition of pro-abortion groups supporting a new Biden Administration rule in federal court.

In April, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin led a 17-state coalition challenging the Biden Administration’s new rule requiring employers to accommodate abortions under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) of 2022.

The PWFA is a federal law that helps ensure pregnant workers receive accommodations from their employers to protect them and their unborn children. However, the Biden Administration has reinterpreted the law to justify federal rules that support abortion.

The Biden Administration’s new pro-abortion rules threaten business owners with lawsuits if they do not accommodate employees’ abortions — even if the abortions would be illegal under state law.

The lawsuit over the rules is still playing out in federal court. However, the ACLU of Arkansas is co-leading an amicus brief supporting the Biden Administration’s rules.

In a statement, the ACLU of Arkansas said,

[A] broad coalition of labor, workers’ rights, and gender justice organizations — led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Arkansas, and the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC)  — filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in support of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) regulations implementing the landmark Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), including the regulations’ explicit protection for workers who have abortions.

It’s worth pointing out that the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act is a bipartisan law that was supported by a broad coalition of organizations, including pro-life groups. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said the law would advance its “goal of ensuring that no woman ever feels forced to choose between her future and the life of her child while protecting the conscience rights and religious freedoms of employers.” However, the Biden Administration is twisting this law to promote abortion.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the Biden Administration has tried to use rules and regulations to support abortion.

After the U.S. Supreme Court released its 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision overturning Roe v. Wade, President Biden issued an executive order urging the Secretary of Health and Human Services to identify ways to use federal authority to expand abortion.

Since then, the administration has reinterpreted laws like the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to support abortion.

We believe federal courts ultimately will recognize what the Biden Administration is doing and block this pro-abortion reinterpretation of federal law.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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