The Arkansas Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee on Wednesday advanced a bill that would repeal the state law under which a clinic, health center or other facility in which a pregnancy of a woman is willfully terminated or aborted shall be licensed by the state Department of Health.
In a voice vote with Sen. Fred Love, D-Little Rock, dissenting, the Senate committee voted to recommend Senate approval of Senate Bill 138 by Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View.
"We need to revise this because it creates a conflict in state code," Irvin told the committee that she chairs.
"The state of Arkansas cannot license an entity that is performing an illegal activity," she said. "So under our current laws as they are, this requires us to strike this language so that does not put us in that quandary."
Irvin said all the other licensing requirements will remain in state law and "at any time that we need to license an entity to do this again, then we will act to do that.
"It's really a technical cleanup bill," she said.
Matt Gilmore, public health policy coordinator for the Arkansas Department of Health, said the bill makes state law consistent in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in June in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, and "just trying to get that cleaned up."
On June 24, then-Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge signed a certificate implementing a 2019 state law that bans abortions in Arkansas except to save the life of the mother in a medical emergency just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe. v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion across the country.
[DOCUMENT: Read Senate Bill 138 » arkansasonline.com/202bill138/]
Love said that if the U.S. Supreme Court reverses its abortion ruling and if SB138 becomes law, "that means we would have to come back in and put this language back in [state law]."
"But if this language is not put back in, then what happens?" Love asked.
"I think that we would act immediately to put the [licensing language] back in," Irvin said.
"On the pro-life and on the pro-choice side, we all agree that this needs to be licensed if this is a legal activity," she said. "It needs to be regulated. It needs to be licensed. There are benefits for having that license in place, so that we understand and can ensure that things are done safely, clean.
"All those things are very, very important to the practice of any type of procedures that are done in a healthcare setting."
Gilmore said all other reporting requirements are still in effect under state law.
There also are rules through the Medical Board and "then I think there also is criminal code out there as well that would come into [play]," he said.
"The license would go away, but there are still checks and balances on the things we are talking about," Gilmore said.