Abortion in Arkansas

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Abortion in Arkansas is illegal except when it is necessary to save the life of the mother. [1] Doctors determined to have performed an abortion face up to 10 years in prison and fines up to $100,000. [1] [2]

Contents

History

Legislative history

Status of the "heartbeat bills", i.e. abortion bans at around 6 weeks, by state (exceptions not marked): .mw-parser-output .legend{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}.mw-parser-output .legend-color{display:inline-block;min-width:1.25em;height:1.25em;line-height:1.25;margin:1px 0;text-align:center;border:1px solid black;background-color:transparent;color:black}.mw-parser-output .legend-text{} Heartbeat bills supplemented or rendered moot by abortion bans at all stages Abortion bans at all stages, but heartbeat bills blocked Other states with abortion bans at all stages, or states without abortion providers Heartbeat bill in force, without total abortion bans Heartbeat law partially passed by state legislature Law passed but blocked or struck down by court order Heartbeat Bill.svg
Status of the "heartbeat bills", i.e. abortion bans at around 6 weeks, by state (exceptions not marked):
  Heartbeat bills supplemented or rendered moot by abortion bans at all stages
  Abortion bans at all stages, but heartbeat bills blocked
  Other states with abortion bans at all stages, or states without abortion providers
  Heartbeat bill in force, without total abortion bans
  Heartbeat law partially passed by state legislature
  Law passed but blocked or struck down by court order

By the end of the 1800s, all states in the Union except Louisiana had therapeutic exceptions in their legislative bans on abortions. [3] In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina and Oregon made reforms to their abortion laws, with most of these states providing more detailed medical guidance on when therapeutic abortions could be performed. [3] An amendment to the state constitution in 1988 said, "The policy of Arkansas is to protect the life of every unborn child from conception until birth, to the extent permitted by the Federal Constitution. [4]

The state was one of twenty-three states in 2007 to have a detailed abortion-specific informed consent requirement. [5] Georgia, Michigan, Arkansas and Idaho all required in 2007 that women must be provided by an abortion clinic with the option to view an image of their fetus if an ultrasound is used prior to the abortion taking place. [6] Arkansas, Minnesota and Oklahoma all require that women seeking abortions after 20-weeks be verbally informed that the fetus may feel pain during the abortion procedure despite a Journal of the American Medical Association conclusion that pain sensors do not develop in the fetus until between weeks 23 and 30. [6] Informed consent materials about fetal pain at 20-weeks in Arkansas, Georgia and Oklahoma says, "the unborn child has the physical structures necessary to experience pain." The Journal of the American Medical Association has concluded that pain sensors do not develop in the fetus until between weeks 23 and 30. [6] In 2013, state Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law applied to medication induced abortions and private doctor offices. [7]

A bill banning abortion after twelve weeks was passed on January 31, 2013, by the Arkansas Senate, [8] [9] but vetoed in Arkansas by Governor Mike Beebe, but, on March 6, 2013, his veto was overridden by the Arkansas House of Representatives. [9] [10] A federal judge issued a temporary injunction against the Arkansas law in May 2013, [11] and in March 2014, it was struck down by federal judge Susan Webber Wright, who described the law as unconstitutional. [12]

Judicial history

The US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester. [3]

In May 2013, a federal judge blocked the implementation of the legislation passed in March 2013. [9] On May 27, 2015, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling and permanently blocked the law from being enforced. [13] In January 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case, leaving the Eighth Circuit's ruling in place. [14]

Clinic history

Number of abortion clinics in Arkansas by year Number of abortion clinics in Arkansas by year.png
Number of abortion clinics in Arkansas by year

Between 1982 and 1992, the number of abortion clinics in the state decreased by five, going from thirteen in 1982 to eight in 1992. [4] In 2014, there were three abortion clinics in the state. [15] In 2014, 97% of the counties in the state did not have an abortion clinic. That year, 77% of women in the state aged 15–44 lived in a county without an abortion clinic. [16] As of 2019, the state had one Planned Parenthood clinic, which offered abortion services. [17]

Statistics

In the period between 1972 and 1974, there were zero recorded illegal abortion deaths in the state. [18] In 1990, 241,000 women in the state faced the risk of an unintended pregnancy. [4] In 2010, the state had no publicly funded abortions. [19] In 2013, among white women aged 15–19, there were 270 abortions, 240 abortions for black women aged 15–19, 40 abortions for Hispanic women aged 15–19, and 10 abortions for women of all other races. [20] In 2014, 38% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. [21] In 2017, the state had an infant mortality rate of 8.2 deaths per 1,000 live births. [22]

Number of reported abortions, abortion rate and percentage change in rate by geographic region and state in 1992, 1995 and 1996 [23]
Census division and stateNumberRate % change 1992–1996
199219951996199219951996
US Total1,528,9301,363,6901,365,73025.922.922.9–12
West South Central127,070119,200120,61019.61818.1–8
Arkansas7,1306,0106,20013.511.111.4–15
Louisiana13,60014,82014,74013.414.714.710
Oklahoma8,9409,1308,40012.512.911.8–5
Texas97,40089,24091,27023.120.520.7–10
Number, rate, and ratio of reported abortions, by reporting area of residence and occurrence and by percentage of abortions obtained by out-of-state residents, US CDC estimates
LocationResidenceOccurrence % obtained by
out-of-state residents		YearRef
No.Rate^Ratio^^No.Rate^Ratio^^
Arkansas7,13013.51992 [23]
Arkansas6,01011.11995 [23]
Arkansas6,20011.41996 [23]
Arkansas4,0247.01044,2537.411022.22014 [24]
Arkansas3,8056.6983,7716.59718.62015 [25]
Arkansas3,4326.0903,2075.68416.52016 [26]
^number of abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44; ^^number of abortions per 1,000 live births

Abortion rights views and activities

Protests

Women from the state participated in marches supporting abortion rights as part of a #StoptheBans movement in May 2019. [27]

Related Research Articles

Abortion in Oklahoma is illegal unless the abortion is necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman.

Abortion in Georgia is legal up to the start of embryonic cardiac-cell activity, which typically begins in the 5th or 6th week after the onset of the last menstrual period (LMP) or in two to three weeks after implantation. This law came into force on July 20, 2022, almost a month after the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, No. 19-1392, 597 U.S. ___ (2022) ruling. In 2007, mandatory ultrasound requirements were passed by state legislators. Georgia has continually sought to legislate against abortion at a state level since 2011. The most recent example, 2019's HB 481, sought to make abortion illegal as soon as embryonic cardiac electrical activity can be detected; in most cases that is around the six-week mark of a pregnancy. Many women are not aware they are pregnant at this time. An injunction was issued against this bill by a federal judge, who ruled that it contravened the Supreme Court's 1973 ruling. A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2014 found that 49% of Georgians believed abortions should be illegal in all or most cases vs 48% legal in all or most cases.

Abortion in Louisiana is mostly illegal as of August 1, 2022.

Abortion in Alaska is legal at all stages of pregnancy, as long as a licensed physician performs the procedure. 63% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Alaska was one of only four states to make abortion legal between 1967 and 1970, a few years before the US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling. Alaska had consent requirements for women seeking abortions by 2007 that required abortion providers to warn patients of a link between abortion and breast cancer.

Abortion in Delaware is legal up to the point of fetal viability. 55% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal and 38% stated it should be illegal in all or most cases. There was a therapeutic exceptions in the state's legislative ban on abortions by 1900. Informed consent laws were on the books by 2007. In 2017, Senator Bryan Townsend, D-Newark introduced legislation to try to make clear that abortion would remain legal in the state in case 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling was overturned. The legislation was subsequently updated. Attempts have been made to introduce mandatory ultrasound laws, but they failed to get out of committee. State legislators tried to move ahead the week at which a woman could get a legal abortion in 2019.

Abortion in Idaho is illegal from fertilization. Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, abortion in Idaho was criminalized by the trigger law which states that a person who performs an abortion may face two to five years of imprisonment. The ban allows exceptions for rape, incest, or maternal health. The law took effect on August 25, 2022.

Abortion in Kansas is legal. Kansas law allows for an abortion up to 20 weeks postfertilization. After that point, only in cases of life or severely compromised physical health may an abortion be performed, with this limit set on the belief that a fetus can feel pain after that point in the pregnancy. The state also had detailed abortion-specific informed consent requirement by 2007. Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law applied to medication-induced abortions and private doctor offices in addition to abortion clinics were in place by 2013. In 2015, Kansas became the first state to ban the dilation and evacuation procedure, a common second-trimester abortion procedure. State laws about abortion have been challenged at the Kansas Supreme Court and US Supreme Court level. On August 2, 2022, Kansas voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have allowed the Republican-controlled legislature to restrict or ban abortion in Kansas, following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Abortion in Maine is legal throughout all stages of pregnancy, though it must be approved as necessary by a licensed physician after fetal viability. According to a poll by the Pew Research Center, 64% of adults said that abortion should be legal with 33% stating that it should be illegal in all or most cases.

Abortion in Minnesota is legal until fetal viability. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled the Minnesota Constitution conferred a right to an abortion in 1995 and the Minnesota Legislature passed and the Governor of Minnesota signed into law a bill in 2023 to recognize a right to reproductive freedom and preventing local units of government from limiting that right.

Abortion in Montana is legal. The number of abortion clinics in Montana has fluctuated over the years, with twenty in 1982, twelve in 1992, eight providers of which seven were clinics in 2011, and five clinics in 2014. There were four clinics from 2015 to February 2018 when All Families Healthcare clinic in Whitefish reopened. There were 1,690 legal abortions in 2014, and 1,611 in 2015.

Abortion in Nebraska is legal up to the 12th week of pregnancy since May 2023, under enacted legislation implemented. In June 2023, a lawsuit was filed because it could potentially be unconstitutional - because it violated the "one subject per rule by the Legislature". The bill now an Act enacted by the Governor with an emergency clause, causing a law to go into immediate effect has two subjects - namely abortion and gender-affirming healthcare.

Abortion, also known as pregnancy termination, was legalized up to the 24th week of pregnancy in New York (NY) in 1970, three years before it was decriminalized for the entire United States with the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Roe v. Wade was later overturned in 2022 by the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The Reproductive Health Act, passed in 2019 in New York, further allows abortions past the 24th week of pregnancy if a woman's life or health is at risk or if the fetus is not viable. Since these exceptions are not defined by the law, and the law carries no criminal penalties, abortion is effectively legal throughout pregnancy.

Abortion in North Dakota is illegal. The state's sole abortion clinic relocated to Minnesota.

Abortion in Rhode Island is legal. On June 19, 2019, the legal right to abortion was codified into Rhode Island law by passage of the Reproductive Privacy Act.

Abortion in South Carolina is legal up to 22 weeks gestation. On May 25, 2023, Governor Henry McMaster signed a 6-week ban, and it took effect immediately. The ban was indefinitely blocked in court on May 26.

Abortion in South Dakota is illegal. Anyone who induces an abortion is guilty of a Class 6 felony. An exception is included to "preserve the life of the pregnant female," given appropriate and reasonable medical judgment.

Abortion in Tennessee is illegal from fertilization, except to "prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman".

Abortion in Utah is legally performed under a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the state's trigger law, which bans abortion. According to HB136, which is effective state law from June 28, 2022, abortions are banned following 18 weeks of gestation. Abortion was banned following the Supreme Court case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization on June 24, 2022. Utah State Legislation enacted SB 174 in May 2020, which, upon the overturn of Roe v. Wade, made inducing an abortion a second-degree felony. The law includes exceptions for pregnancies "caused by rape or incest," pregnancies that put the mother's life at risk, or "if two doctors say the fetus has a lethal defect." Rape and incest exceptions will only be viable if the crimes were previously reported to law enforcement officials.

Abortion in the U.S. state of Virginia is legal up to the end of the second trimester of a pregnancy. Abortion was illegal in Virginia by 1900, but by 1950 had a legal therapeutic exception. At the University of Virginia Hospital in 1950, a review board was created to examine and approve all abortion requests that were approved for psychiatric reasons which resulted in a large drop in the number of abortions performed there. In the 1975 Bigelow v. Virginia case the US Supreme Court ruled that state bans on abortion clinics advertising their services were unconstitutional. By 2007, Virginia had an abortion-specific informed consent requirement. The number of abortion clinics in Virginia has fluctuated over the years, with 71 in 1982, 64 in 1992 and eighteen in 2014. There were 20,187 legal abortions in 2014, and 18,663 in 2015. There are active abortion rights and anti-abortion rights activist communities in the states. The state has also seen anti-abortion rights violence, including at least two arson attacks.

Abortion in West Virginia is illegal, with few exceptions.

References

  1. 1 2 Blumenthal, Paul (2022-06-14). "These States Will Ban Abortion Now That Roe Is Overturned". HuffPost. Retrieved 2022-06-24.
  2. ↑ "Document".
  3. 1 2 3 Buell, Samuel (1991-01-01). "Criminal Abortion Revisited". New York University Law Review. 66 (6): 1774–1831. PMID   11652642.
  4. 1 2 3 Arndorfer, Elizabeth; Michael, Jodi; Moskowitz, Laura; Grant, Juli A.; Siebel, Liza (December 1998). A State-By-State Review of Abortion and Reproductive Rights. DIANE Publishing. ISBN   9780788174810.
  5. ↑ "State Policy On Informed Consent for Abortion" (PDF). Guttmacher Policy Review. Fall 2007. Retrieved May 22, 2019.
  6. 1 2 3 "State Abortion Counseling Policies and the Fundamental Principles of Informed Consent". Guttmacher Institute. 2007-11-12. Retrieved 2019-05-22.
  7. ↑ "TRAP Laws Gain Political Traction While Abortion Clinics—and the Women They Serve—Pay the Price". Guttmacher Institute. 2013-06-27. Retrieved 2019-05-27.
  8. ↑ Parker, Suzi (January 31, 2013). "Arkansas Senate passes fetal heartbeat law to ban most abortions". Reuters . Retrieved September 5, 2013.
  9. 1 2 3 "Abortion Restrictions in States". The New York Times. Retrieved 2019-05-25.
  10. ↑ Bassett, Laura (March 6, 2013). "Arkansas 12-Week Abortion Ban Becomes Law". Huffington Post . Retrieved July 31, 2013.
  11. ↑ "Ark. 'heartbeat' abortion law blocked - Washington Times". The Washington Times.
  12. ↑ AP (March 15, 2014). "U.S. judge strikes Arkansas' 12-week abortion ban". USA Today. Retrieved September 20, 2014.
  13. ↑ "Arkansas Human Heartbeat Protection Act (SB 134)". rewire.news. Retrieved February 10, 2019.
  14. ↑ "Heartbeat Bans". rewire.news. Retrieved February 10, 2019. In January 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case, leaving the Eighth Circuit's ruling in place.
  15. ↑ Gould, Rebecca Harrington, Skye. "The number of abortion clinics in the US has plunged in the last decade — here's how many are in each state". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-05-23.
  16. ↑ Panetta, Grace; lee, Samantha (2018-08-04). "This is what could happen if Roe v. Wade fell". Business Insider (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2019-05-24. Retrieved 2019-05-24.
  17. ↑ "Health Centers - Arkansas - Planned Parenthood".
  18. ↑ Cates, Willard; Rochat, Roger (March 1976). "Illegal Abortions in the United States: 1972–1974". Family Planning Perspectives. 8 (2): 86–92. doi:10.2307/2133995. JSTOR   2133995. PMID   1269687.
  19. ↑ "Guttmacher Data Center". data.guttmacher.org. Retrieved 2019-05-24.
  20. ↑ "No. of abortions among women aged 15–19, by state of residence, 2013 by racial group". Guttmacher Data Center. Retrieved 2019-05-24.
  21. ↑ "Views about abortion by state - Religion in America: U.S. Religious Data, Demographics and Statistics". Pew Research Center. Retrieved 2019-05-23.
  22. ↑ "States pushing abortion bans have highest infant mortality rates". NBC News. 24 May 2019. Retrieved 2019-05-25.
  23. 1 2 3 4 Henshaw, Stanley K. (2005-06-15). "Abortion Incidence and Services in the United States, 1995-1996". Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health. 30: 263–270. Retrieved 2019-06-02.
  24. ↑ Jatlaoui, Tara C. (2017). "Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2014". MMWR. Surveillance Summaries. 66 (24): 1–48. doi:10.15585/mmwr.ss6624a1. ISSN   1546-0738. PMC   6289084 . PMID   29166366.
  25. ↑ Jatlaoui, Tara C. (2018). "Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2015". MMWR. Surveillance Summaries. 67 (13): 1–45. doi:10.15585/mmwr.ss6713a1. ISSN   1546-0738. PMC   6289084 . PMID   30462632.
  26. ↑ Jatlaoui, Tara C. (2019). "Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2016". MMWR. Surveillance Summaries. 68 (11): 1–41. doi: 10.15585/mmwr.ss6811a1 . ISSN   1546-0738. PMID   31774741.
  27. ↑ Bacon, John. "Abortion rights supporters' voices thunder at #StopTheBans rallies across the nation". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2019-05-25.
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