Author: Talcott Camp / Source: Common Dreams
Arkansans have plenty of health needs their politicians should address — from the third highest maternal mortality rate in the U.S. to an opioid epidemic. Yet Arkansas politicians have spent their energies blocking a woman’s access to abortion care with ever crueler means.
Before 2017, Arkansas was already a leader in the campaign to obstruct and hinder reproductive rights. The state tried to ban abortion at 12 weeks, a law that the ACLU fought and defeated. But many onerous restrictions remain. Arkansas forces a woman to make an extra, unnecessary trip to a physician to hear state-mandated information; then to delay care for at least 48 hours; and then to make another trip back to the provider to get her abortion. The state also bans abortion coverage in state insurance exchange plans.
This year, Arkansas lawmakers enacted a slew of new restrictions that practically prohibit access to abortion services. Here’s what they do:
- Ban a medically proven abortion method. One measure bans the safe, medically-proven method that is used for essentially all abortions past the first trimester in the state. This is Arkansas lawmakers’ attempt to deny a woman access to the care she wants as her pregnancy progresses.
- Allow a woman’s sexual partner (or abuser) to block an abortion. Another measure requires that the patient and her medical provider treat the embryonic or fetal tissue under the same law that directs disposition of the body of a family member who has died. A woman’s sexual partner then has equal say in what happens to that tissue, which means he must be notified of her abortion. This would effectively allow that partner — even an abuser — to block an abortion by withholding consent. This is a grotesque intrusion into a…
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