LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the state's overturned 12-week abortion ban.
Rutledge filed a response Monday to a brief from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights asking the court to deny the state's request to uphold the ban.
Rutledge said the court should reconsider the viability rule that sets abortion restrictions on a fetus' ability to live outside the womb, usually at 22 to 24 weeks. She has said the standard should be whether a fetal heartbeat can be detected.
A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in May upheld a federal judge's ruling striking down the ban.
The majority-Republican Legislature enacted the ban in 2013, overriding a veto by then-Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat.