A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday, blocking legislation recently passed in Arkansas that would have made nearly all abortions in the state illegal.
U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker wrote that the abortion ban was “categorically unconstitutional” because it restricts abortions prior to a fetus being considered viable.
She said that the plaintiffs in this case were "likely to succeed on the merits" of their argument that the law impacted "pre-viability abortions."
The Arkansas law would restrict all abortions that would not be necessary to save the life of the mother, according to the Associated Press. No exceptions would be made for cases of rape or incest.
"Defendants make no argument as to whether or not plaintiffs or plaintiffs’ patients will experience irreparable harm," Baker wrote. “Since the record at this stage of the proceedings indicates that women seeking abortions in Arkansas face an imminent threat to their constitutional rights, the Court concludes that they will suffer irreparable harm without injunctive relief."
The lawsuit that resulted in Baker issuing the injunction was filed by Little Rock Family Planning Services in May. Baker said most of the case's plaintiffs are "poor or low-income" and that Arkansas's maternal mortality rate is 50 percent higher that the national rate.
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“We’re relieved that the court has blocked another cruel and harmful attempt to criminalize abortion care and intrude on Arkansans’ deeply personal medical decisions,” Holly Dickson, executive director for the ACLU of Arkansas said in statement to the AP.
The law would have taken effect on July 28.
Arkansas has enacted 20 abortion restrictions this year, the most in a state since 1978, when Louisiana passed the equivalent.
The state already had some of the strictest abortion measures in the country and two years ago Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed a measure into law in 2019 that would ban abortions in the case that Roe v. Wade is overturned. Another 2019 measure Hutchinson signed banned abortions after 18 weeks of pregnancy and is currently on hold amidst a legal challenge.
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