Last week, an Arkansas legislator introduced a bill which will ban abortion from fertilization to birth. It promises to be one of the strongest pieces of Pro-Life legislation introduced at the state level.
This past Wednesday, State Senator Jason Rapert filed Senate Bill 6 “To Create the Arkansas Unborn Child Protection Act.” The legislation would prohibit the killing of unborn children and heavily penalize those involved in the provision of abortion procedures.
The legislation defines abortion as:
“the act of using, prescribing, administering, procuring, or selling of any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other substance, device, or means with the purpose to terminate the pregnancy of a woman, with knowledge that the termination by any of those means will with reasonable likelihood cause the death of the unborn child.”
Interestingly, this legislation would prohibit the use of drugs to induce miscarriages, or “abortions” of unborn children. This would prohibit the sale of the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol. The first of these drugs blocks progesterone, a vital hormone in womens’ pregnancies, and the second induces horrific cramping and bleeding that causes a woman’s uterus to empty. Both are known as the “abortion pill” and are taken sequentially to cause drug-induced abortions.
However, the legislation takes care to distinguish procedures used to address ectopic pregnancies from elective abortions. It also does not penalize invasive procedures intended to save a mother’s or child’s life.
The penalties for those who take the lives of unborn children could be strict. If enacted, this bill would allow the state to fine abortions up to 100,000$. It would also permit the imprisonment of abortionists (the person who performs th abortion) for up to ten years.
The legislation compares the elimination of the unborn’s civil right to life by Roe v. Wade (1973) to Dredd Scott v. Sanford (1857.) In the Dredd Scott holding, the Supreme Court ruled that African-Americans do not hold rights to equal citizenship in the United States. The Dredd Scott decision was later nullified by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. They were ratified after the Civil War.
State Senator Rapert hopes his law will play a role in ending the horrific practice of abortion across the United States. The Magnolia Banner-News reported that Rapert intendsthe law to trigger a challenge to Roe’s broad protection of abortion legality at the federal level. With the recent confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, the conservative majority is larger. In the United States, conservative jurists are more opposed to abortion legality than liberal ones.
If the bill passes, it will likely face litigation on the grounds of Roe’s defense of abortion.
This isn’t the first time Rapert exhibited Pro-Life leadership. Back in 2019, he sponsored a piece of legislation which would automatically prohibit abortion in Arkansas were the decision in Roe to be overturned.
His bill isn’t the first to restrict abortion at the state level this year. Several others have been enacted restricting the timeframes in which women may seek abortions. Others have sought to prevent eugenic abortions, aimed at eradicating Down’s Syndrome and other disabilities from the population.This week, the 6th Circuit overturned parts of a lower court decision which would have prohibited such a law from taking effect in Tennessee.
Whether the Arkansas law passes is yet to be seen. However, pro-life activists will be watching its progress closely and praying for its success. If there was any time that such a challenge could reverse parts of the Roe decision, it is more likely now with conservatives in charge of the Supreme Court.
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