Activists are working to put abortion on the ballot in Arkansas, adding to a growing list of states that may be voting on the issue in 2024.
A non-profit called For AR People announced the creation of a new group on Monday called Arkansans for Limited Government, a ballot question committee that will support the “Arkansas Reproductive Healthcare Amendment.”
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The proposed amendment would “prevent the state from restricting access to abortion within 18 weeks of conception, in cases of rape or incest, in the event of a fatal fetal anomaly, or when abortion is needed to protect the pregnant female’s life or health,” according to the organization. Abortion is currently completely outlawed in the state except to save the life of the mother.
Samuel Watson with For AR People told local media the non-profit has been working on the initiative since the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, a 1973 decision that had invented the “right” to abortion.
“We’ve really been working on this since the Dobbs decision came down, and Arkansas’ trigger laws went into effect because we knew immediately what that would mean for patients and providers,” Watson said.
Watson claimed the group is not pro-life or pro-choice, even though the amendment would allow unborn babies — who each have unique DNA at the moment of conception — to be killed in the womb.
“We think that this is a really good compromise language,” he said. “We think that this will cover a lot of ground and really put the decision back into the hands of patients and providers.”
Rose Mimms, executive director of Arkansas Right to Life, said the initiative is concerning and “broad.”
“It’s very broad language, and not letting the state really restrict abortion, any really definitive way which we have many protective laws on the books right now that do protect the mother and the unborn child, and their language has no kind of measures in there at all to protect the women from any complications that she might have that could really cost her really future reproductive health or even protect her life,” Mimms said.
Even so, Mimms said the pro-abortion effort will not stand in the way of the pro-life organization’s main mission.
“Arkansas is going to continue to do what we’ve always done and that is to protect life and to protect mothers and fathers,” Mimms said. “The decision of an abortion is one that carries lifelong consequences and affects the lives of all of us.”
The state attorney general is reviewing the proposed amendment, according to local media. If approved, the group would be allowed to move forward with signature collection.
“According to the Secretary of State’s office, since this is a proposed constitutional amendment, 90,704 signatures would need to be collected to put this on the November 2024 ballot,” the report states.
If the measure makes it onto the ballot in 2024, it would require a simple majority to pass.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
