Black Mamba
Member
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/u...rictive-abortion-law.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0In the sharpest challenge yet to Roe v. Wade, Arkansas adopted Wednesday what is by far the countrys most restrictive ban on abortion, at 12 weeks of pregnancy, around the time that a fetal heartbeat can be detected by abdominal ultrasound.
The law was passed by the newly Republican-controlled legislature over the veto of Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat, who called it blatantly unconstitutional. On Tuesday the state Senate voted to override his veto by a vote of 20 to 14; on Wednesday the House enacted the bill into law by a vote of 55 to 33, with several Democrats joining the Republican majority.
The law contradicts the limit established by Supreme Court decisions, which give women a right to an abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, usually around 24 weeks into pregnancy, and abortion rights groups promised a quick lawsuit to block it.
Adoption of the law, called the Human Heartbeat Protection Act, is the first statewide victory for a restless emerging faction within the anti-abortion movement that has lost patience with the incremental whittling away at abortion rights the strategy of established groups like National Right to Life and the Catholic Church while they wait for a more sympathetic Supreme Court.
When is enough enough? asked the bills sponsor in the legislature, Senator Jason Rapert, a 40-year-old Republican and conservative Christian, who compared the more than 50 million abortions in the United States since Roe v. Wade, in 1973, to the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. Its time to take a stand.
But abortion rights groups and many legal experts, including some in the anti-abortion movement, say the law so sharply contradicts existing constitutional doctrine that it will quickly be voided.
The 12-week ban actually bars abortion within the first trimester, said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York. It has no chance of surviving a court challenge.
The center and the American Civil Liberties Union have vowed to swiftly bring a case in federal court, aiming to head off the law before it takes effect 90 days after the legislature disbands in the next month or so.
Traditional anti-abortion leaders have opposed or remained neutral on more sweeping proposals unsuccessful until this week to adopt early bans on abortion by declaring fertilized eggs to have the legal rights of a person, or to bar the procedure when a fetal heartbeat is detected, the inspiration for the Arkansas law.
At the same time, the strategy of incrementally narrowing abortion rights has proved successful, especially since 2010, when Republicans gained control of many more states. Measures have been adopted by the dozens in the past few years include waiting periods, parental consent for minors, ultrasound requirements and stringent regulations aimed at clinics.
In Mississippi, a rule requiring doctors performing abortions to have visiting privileges at local hospitals threatens to close down the states only remaining abortion clinic, which relies on traveling doctors. A court decision on the measure is expected any day.
In a less brazen challenge to existing law than Arkansass newest measure, 10 states have pushed time limits for abortions down to 20 weeks into pregnancy on the theory, disputed by most medical experts, that a fetus can feel pain by then. Such laws have wider support in the anti-abortion movement. Arkansas adopted a 20-week ban over the governors veto last week, and most who supported it went on to vote for Mr. Raperts more stringent bill as well.
The 20-week laws also violate the existing standard of fetal viability, and in two states are under legal challenge. Few abortions take place that late in pregnancy, and often they are for emergency medical reasons that may be permitted in any case.
By contrast, a 12-week ban would affect an estimated 12 percent of abortions nationwide, said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager with the Guttmacher Institute, a research group in Washington that supports abortion rights. In Arkansas in 2011, 4,033 abortions were performed; 676 of them, or 17 percent, were after 12 weeks, according to state data. How many of these later procedures involved medical emergencies or cases of rape or incest exceptions allowed under the new law is not known.
The state currently has only one clinic, in Little Rock, that performs surgical abortions; a second, run by Planned Parenthood, only offers medicinal abortions, which are done only within the first eight weeks of pregnancy.
Senator Rapert, who cited the strong support for his bill from conservative evangelical groups like the Arkansas Family Council, hopes the Arkansas law will start a groundswell. We crafted a bill that apparently has the ability to stand the test in courts and change abortion policy in our nation coast to coast, he said in an interview this week.
But so far, more radical measures elsewhere have fallen flat. In Mississippi a so-called personhood amendment lost at the polls, while in Ohio, a fetal heartbeat bill resembling that in Arkansas was defeated in the legislature, in part because it was opposed by one of the state's leading anti-abortion groups, Ohio Right to Life.
These proposals have faced deep skepticism or outright opposition from many traditional anti-abortion leaders who disagree with the strategy of directly challenging the time limit set by the Supreme Court at this time.
As much as we would like to protect the unborn at that point, it is futile and it wont save any babies, said James Bopp Jr., a prominent anti-abortion lawyer, of the Arkansas law. Mr. Bopp, who lives in Indiana, is general counsel of National Right to Life.
He said that lower courts are virtually certain to affirm existing Supreme Court rulings, and he predicted that the Supreme Court is very unlikely to agree to hear such a case.
Mr. Rapert originally proposed setting the Arkansas ban even earlier, about six weeks after a womans last menstrual period. But the nascent fetal heartbeat, at that point, can be detected only by using intrusive technology like a trans-vaginal ultrasound.
Wary of the national firestorm that erupted last year after Virginia tried to require an intrusive procedure, Mr. Rapert and his allies revised the bill to specify that a fetal heartbeat should be detected by abdominal ultrasound or other external methods, which is not feasible at six weeks.
In recent days, anticipating Thursday's vote, House leaders worked to make sure that Republican members would be in the chamber for the vote and to persuade some Democratic members to cross the aisle. Last weekend, a number of Democrats got worked over by constituents who support stringent anti-abortion measures, said Representative Greg Leding, 27, a Democrat and House minority leader.
Some represent rural districts that are absolutely opposed to reproductive rights, he said. Theres no reaching them.
Abortion rights groups have watched the legislation with chagrin.
It sets Arkansas back several decades in the eyes of the nation and the world, said Rita Sklar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas. It shows an utter disregard for women and their ability to make important personal decisions about their own reproductive health.
Wasting time on clearly illegal bans. Should focus on the economy rather than making their own moral points that are costly and time consuming for the courts and state.
