LITTLE ROCK —A federal judge has blocked implementation of a law to eliminate abortions after 12 weeks in Arkansas.
U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright issued a preliminary injunction, in effect keeping the law from taking effect on Aug. 16 until a lawsuit against it is resolved.
The ruling came two days after the judge rejected arguments that Act 301 of 2013 does not place an undue burden on a woman’s right to an abortion and that the plaintiffs lack standing to challenge a law that has not yet gone into effect.
Wright set no trial date for the lawsuit, filed last month by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights. The suit was filed on behalf of Drs. Louis Jerry Edwards and Tom Tvedten, who provide abortion services at a Little Rock clinic. The suit alleges that Act 301 of 2013 violates established case law by banning abortions before a fetus becomes viable.
Act 301 requires a woman seeking an abortion 12 weeks or later into a pregnancy to receive an abdominal ultrasound to check for a fetal heartbeat, and if a heartbeat is detected the abortion is prohibited except in cases of rape, incest, a threat to the mother’s life or a fetal anomaly that would not allow the child to survive after birth. A doctor found guilty of violating the act would lose his or her medical license.
The U.S. Supreme Court has said states cannot ban abortions before a fetus becomes viable, or able to survive outside the womb, which doctors generally consider to occur about 23 or 24 weeks into a pregnancy.
Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat, vetoed the legislation that became Act 301, as well as another measure banning most abortions at 20 weeks, saying he believed they were unconstitutional. But the state Legislature, with its first Republican majority since Reconstruction, easily overrode both vetoes.