Arkansas Supreme Court Upholds Decision to Block Pro-Abortion Measure from November Ballot

Arkansas bans abortions except to save the pregnant woman’s life in a medical emergency. Abortion advocates attempted to put an initiative on the November ballot to amend the state constitution to allow abortions up to 18 weeks and expand the exception.

Their attempt was thwarted in July after John Thurston, secretary of state, rejected the initiative. He said that Arkansans for Limited Government (AFLG), which collected signatures for the initiative, did not file the proper documentation. The group filed a lawsuit.

The Arkansas Supreme Court just ruled against Arkansans for Limited Government.

The Southwest Times Record reported that the state’s highest court voted 4-3 to uphold the secretary’s decision to reject the measure. An excerpt:

“We find that the Secretary correctly refused to count the signatures collected by paid canvassers because the sponsor failed to file the paid canvasser training certification,” Associate Justice Rhonda K. Wood wrote in the majority’s opinion.
…
“AFLG needed 90,704 signatures to complete the first stage of the initial facial count to proceed to the verification stage. As it failed to obtain this number of signatures, AFLG is not entitled to any further relief,” Wood said.

After the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 2022, the issue of abortion returned to the states. Some have placed tighter restrictions on abortion, and others have loosened restrictions.

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