Rita Sklar, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, said the ACLU and the Center for Reproductive Rights will be ready to file a federal lawsuit in the next couple of weeks to challenge Arkansas’s new 12-week limit on abortions and “restore the rights of Arkansas women that were so unceremoniously taken away today” with the House override of Gov. Beebe’s veto.
In the year that we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s decision that saved countless lives by removing legal blocks to abortion prior to viability, Arkansas has decided to turn back the clock and make its women 2nd class citizens and revive the business of back alley abortion.
“The whole thing has not only been a slap in the face of Arkansas women but a serious bruising for the state of Arkansas and any efforts it has tried to make to present itself as progressive, forward-thinking state where people might want to live and work,” Sklar said. “It’s a giant leap back in time.”
The Arkansas legislature has said to the women of Arkansas “we don’t trust you to make your own decisions, whether by yourselves or with your family or doctor. We’re going to decide for you,” Sklar said.
Thus, the 12-week-embryo is calling the shots for a woman’s life. A man’s life is never thus encumbered.