A bill that would prohibit abortion in Arkansas, if the U.S. Supreme Court allows such a ban, cleared a House committee on Tuesday after another round of emotional testimony.
Sponsored by Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Conway, Senate Bill 149 would go further than the law in place at the time of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade by allowing abortion only to save the life of a mother during a medical emergency.
Before the high court's 1973 ruling, a 1969 Arkansas law allowed abortions when a doctor determined that continuing the pregnancy would endanger the life of the woman, that there was a substantial risk that the child would be born with a grave mental or physical defect or when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest that had been reported to a prosecutor within seven days of the crime.
The new ban under SB149 would go into effect if Roe v. Wade is overturned or an amendment is added to the U.S. Constitution allowing states to ban abortion.
The Arkansas ban wouldn't prohibit the administration of contraceptive drugs "before the time a pregnancy could be determined through conventional medical testing."
[RELATED: Complete Democrat-Gazette coverage of the Arkansas Legislature]
Similar "trigger laws" are in place in North Dakota, South Dakota, Louisiana and Mississippi, Rapert said.
Rapert said Arkansans expressed their opinion on the matter in 1988, when they passed Amendment 68 to the state constitution. The amendment says 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."
Since then, the Legislature has passed several laws restricting abortion, he noted.
"The state of Arkansas is clearly a pro-life state," Rapert said.
The House Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee advanced SB149 in a voice vote Tuesday in which at least one dissenting vote could be heard. The bill passed 29-6 in the Senate last week and now goes to the full House.
According to an article in the Arkansas Democrat, 793 legal abortions were performed in the state the year before the Roe v. Wade ruling.
In 2017, the state had 3,249 abortions, according to the Department of Health.
Those speaking against SB149 on Tuesday included Hannah Radecki, a University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences graduate who is completing a residency in family medicine in Kentucky.
Noting that the legislation doesn't contain exceptions for rape or incest or cases where a fetus has "medical problems that are incompatible with life," she said the bill would interfere with the relationship between doctors and their patients.
"I have already known of medical students and physicians who have decided to practice medicine outside of Arkansas due to the limitations that this state imposes and the difficulty that women have in seeking comprehensive sexual and prenatal care, including access to abortions," Radecki said.
Republican Rep. Cindy Crawford, chief executive of a Fort Smith organization that provides housing and other assistance for pregnant teenagers and women, said every woman she's worked with who had an abortion regretted the decision.
Unborn children have less legal protection in Arkansas and other states than "dogs and cats and whales and turtles," Crawford said.
"We're not talking about whales and turtles," she said. "We're talking about a baby, just like you were, and your mother chose life."
Metro on 02/13/2019