The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a challenge to add an abortion measure to the November ballot that would have added additional exemptions to the state constitution.
The Arkansas Abortion Amendment of 2024 Enlarge The bill passed would add additional exceptions to the state's current abortion law for cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal abnormality, and cases in which a doctor determines it is “necessary to protect the life of the pregnant woman or to protect her from disability, physical illness, or bodily injury.” Supported Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston's decision Reject The ballot initiative was rejected because the bill did not complete the paperwork required to be evaluated.
The court majority argued that because Arkansans for Limited Government (AFLG) had failed to provide evidence of the authentication of the canvassers who collected the signatures on the ballot, signatures collected by unauthorized canvassers were invalid and the petition was incompetent.
“We find that the Secretary properly refused to count the signatures collected by the paid canvassers because the sponsors failed to provide certification of training for the paid canvassers,” the court wrote in its ruling. “AFLG needed 90,704 signatures to complete the first phase of initial face-to-face meetings in order to proceed to the verification phase. Having failed to obtain this number of signatures, AFLG is not entitled to any further relief.”
A man grimaces as he is confronted by pro-abortion protesters outside a pregnancy center in Little Rock, one of whose signs reads “Feminists are the majority” and another reads “This clinic is open.” (Photo by Greg Smith/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
In a dissenting opinion, Judge Karen R. Baker argued that the proposal still stands because the petitioners filed the necessary documents by the July 5 deadline, and that there is nothing in the statute that requires all documents to be filed at the same time. Chief Judge John Dan Kemp, in a separate dissenting opinion, argued that the secretary had not met his obligation to complete his initial review and should have allowed an interim cure period to give the court more time and information to decide the case. (Related article: Republican states reject abortion bills)
“The majority succeeded in its efforts to change the law to deprive voters of the opportunity to vote on this issue, but that is not the proper role of this Court,” Justice Baker wrote.
Current Arkansas Law prohibit Abortion is not permitted except in cases of medical emergency where the mother's life is at risk.
Thurston and AFLG did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation's request for comment.
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