Legislation Would Provide $2M for Pregnancy Help Organizations, Address Maternal Health in Arkansas

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The Arkansas Legislature’s 2024 fiscal session is underway, and lawmakers are busy considering budget measures.

On Thursday Sen. John Payton (R – Wilburn) filed S.B. 64 providing $2 million in state funding for pregnancy help organizations that promote maternal health and provide women with options besides abortion. If passed, the measure would provide increased funding for organizations that help women and families.

 In 2022 Family Council worked with the legislature and the governor to secure $1 million for pregnancy centers. This funding provided grants to more than 20 pregnancy help organizations. Last year we worked with lawmakers to renew this funding. This grant money has gone to good organizations across the state that give women and families real assistance when faced with an unplanned pregnancy.

S.B. 64 would make improvements to the grant program. It would increase state funding from $1 million per year to $2 million. This would put Arkansas’ funding on parr with other states’.

The bill also clarifies that “pregnancy help organizations” include nonprofit organizations that promote infant and maternal wellness and reduce infant and maternal mortality by:

  • Providing nutritional information and/or nutritional counseling;
  • Providing prenatal vitamins;
  • Providing a list of prenatal medical care options;
  • Providing social, emotional, and/or material support; or
  • Providing referrals for WIC and community-based nutritional services, including but not limited to food banks, food pantries, and food distribution centers.

The measure includes language preventing state funds from going to abortionists and their affiliates.

Now that abortion is prohibited in Arkansas except to save the life of the mother, we need to support women and families with unplanned pregnancies, and we need to promote infant and maternal wellness. This grant funding  does that.

It provides women in Arkansas with actual, pro-life options and support — meaning they are less likely to travel out of state for abortion. And it helps fund pro-life organizations who are promoting infant and maternal wellness in Arkansas.

More than 50 pregnancy help organizations serve thousands of women in Arkansas. S.B. 64 would enable them to do even more in our state.

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

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Eighth Circuit Hears Arguments Over Arkansas Law Protecting Children From Sex-Change Surgeries

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On Thursday the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis heard oral arguments in a lawsuit over whether or not Arkansas can protect children from sex-change procedures.

In 2021, lawmakers in Arkansas overwhelmingly passed the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act.

The SAFE Act is a good law that prevents doctors in Arkansas from performing sex-change surgeries on children or giving them puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. 

Unfortunately, the SAFE Act has been tied up in court for more than two years, and a federal judge in Little Rock has blocked the state from enforcing the law. However, federal appeals courts have let similar laws go into effect in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama.

During Thursday’s oral arguments, Arkansas Deputy Solicitor General Dylan Jacobs told the court,

This case is about whether the constitution compels states to allow life-altering gender transition procedures to be performed on minors. Two courts of appeals [the Sixth and Eleventh Circuit Courts] analyzing the same claims at issue here have held that it does not. . . . Arkansas’ law does not discriminate based on sex, it does not discriminate based on transgender status, and it does not run afoul of any parental rights.

Sex-change surgeries and procedures can leave children sterilized and scarred for life.

Researchers do not know all the long term effects these procedures can have on children, but a growing body of scientific evidence shows children should not be subjected to sex-change procedures, puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones.

Files leaked from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) organization reveal that medical professionals performing gender-transitions on kids have been fully aware that these procedures can lead to lasting regret and painful complications — some of which may even be life-threatening.

For example, the leaked files showed one WPATH doctor encountered a 16-year-old female patient who had “two [cancerous] liver masses [tumors]” and that girl’s oncologist and surgeon both agreed cross-sex hormones were to blame for the cancerous tumors.

Not long after Arkansas passed the SAFE Act, a major hospital in Sweden announced that it would no longer give puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to kids. Since then, the U.K. has joined a growing list of jurisdictions that protect children from puberty blockers, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has added a warning label to puberty blockers after discovering they caused some biological girls to experience swelling in the brain.

Fortunately, public opinion is shifting on this issue, with more Americans saying it’s morally wrong to change genders.

The SAFE Act is good legislation that protects children. We believe our federal courts will recognize that fact and uphold this law as constitutional.

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

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Another Group Announces Opposition to Arkansas Abortion Amendment

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Opposition continues to form against the Arkansas Abortion Amendment.

Right now a group is working to place the Arkansas Abortion Amendment on the November ballot. The measure would write abortion into the state constitution, and it would prevent the Arkansas Legislature from restricting abortion during the first five months of pregnancy — allowing thousands of elective abortions every year and paving the way for taxpayer-funded abortions in Arkansas.

On Wednesday, Students for Life of America filed ballot question committee paperwork with the Arkansas Ethics Commission, announcing it would oppose the abortion amendment.

The pro-life organization is headquartered in Virginia and has a staff of nearly 80 full-time employees. Part of the group’s mission includes training and equipping students about abortion.

Students for Life is the latest organization to stand against the abortion amendment. Others include:

You can download a copy of the abortion abortion amendment here.

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

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