Arkansas AG Rejects Language for Abortion Amendment

FROM CV, November 30, 2023

In a major setback to the abortion lobby in Arkansas, the state’s Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin has denied an attempt to put an Ohio-style pro-abortion constitutional amendment on the state’s 2024 ballot for the time being.

The rejected measure was known by the popular name of “The Arkansas Reproductive Healthcare Amendment.” It was shepherded by “Arkansas For Limited Government,” a pro-abortion group explicitly formed to put the measure on the ballot, similar to the group that was behind Ohio’s successful Issue 1 amendment. 

The amendment’s text stated that if it passed Arkansas would not be able to “penalize, delay or restrict access to abortion within 18 weeks of conception, or in cases of rape, incest, in the event of a fatal fetal anomaly, or when abortion is needed to protect the pregnant female’s life or health.”

Jordan Boyd of The Federalist pointed out that Griffin’s action could make all the difference where pro-life efforts in Ohio failed. 

“Ohio’s recently passed constitutional amendment was so deceptively worded that it left even the most staunch of abortion activists scratching their heads,” Boyd noted:

By demanding clarity and exposing abortion activists’ deceptive petitioning practices, Griffin and other Republican Attorneys General like Ashley Moody in Florida and Marty Jackley in South Dakota ensured their states would not immediately fall prey to the unlimited abortion-for-all activism sweeping the nation.

Arkansas: AG_Abortion_Opinion_-_Steve_Goff.pdf (ellingtoncms.com)
Florida AG: Ashley Moody: Pro-abortion amendment ballot summary would ‘mislead voters’ (flvoicenews.com)
South Dakota: Letters from AG Jackley to Sponsor R. Weiland to Dakotans for Health.pdf (sd.gov)

Please take note of this judge in Nevada also rejecting the broad and misleading language of the state’s abortion ballot amendment: Nevada judge rejects ballot initiative making abortion a right | Politics News (christianpost.com)

As a reminder, Cincinnati Right to Life supported a filing against the broad, deceptive language of Ohio’s abortion amendment, known as Issue 1. LEGAL FILING

Here is the decision by the Ohio Supreme Court: DECISION