The majority of the Supreme Court of Arkansas opposes abortion. So, they blocked a referendum on abortion access on flimsy technical grounds. Democracy, be damned in Arkansas. To read the background and the Court’s opinions, please open the link.
The Arkansas Supreme Court today likely drove a final stake through the heart of a ballot initiative to restore abortion rights in Arkansas. In a 4-3 decision, the court denied the request from the group backing the measure to restart the review process after the secretary of state preemptively disqualified the group last month due to a piece of paperwork the group failed to include in its final submission of the petition.
Despite collecting signatures from more than 100,000 Arkansans — and despite the fact that the plain language of the statutes appeared to show that the review process for the petition should have continued — the court ruled that paperwork omission was fatal to the group’s effort.
For those following the case, this has always been the fear: Even if the law was on their side, the majority of the court opposes abortion. Ultimately the law is what the Supreme Court says it is. Among the grab-bag of flimsy arguments offered by Attorney General Tim Griffin, they found a couple they could stretch to suit the purpose of disqualifying the abortion petition.
In a blistering dissent, Associate Karen Baker took the majority to task for their descent into Calvinball:
Even a cursory review of how the present ballot initiative has progressed since its inception demonstrates that both the respondent and the majority have treated it differently for the sole purpose of preventing the people from voting on this issue.
“Today is a dark day in Arkansas,” said Rebecca Bobrow, a spokesperson for Arkansans for Limited Government (AFLG), the group leading the petition effort. “This morning, by a vote of 4-3, the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld Secretary Thurston’s disqualification of the Arkansas Abortion Amendment. More than 102,000 Arkansas voters exercised their constitutionally protected right to engage in direct democracy by signing the petition to get the Arkansas Abortion Amendment on the ballot. The Court’s majority ratifies Secretary Thurston’s decision to silence those voices.”
Theoretically, AFLG could file a lawsuit in federal court. But for procedural and timing reasons, that is extremely unlikely to help. In all likelihood, it’s over: Citizens will not have the opportunity to vote to restore abortion rights in November.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The GOP is DRACONIAN!
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The GOP is an xtian nationalistic theofascist party. Anything less than having Jesus in the Oval Office is not acceptable.
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Git back in the kitchen, woman! What do you mean you need a new pair of shoes? When’s are ya due?
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO ABORTION
THE NINTH AMENDMENT: Nowhere in the Constitution is it written that there is a constitutional right to live in a racially mixed marriage as does Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and many states had laws prohibiting mixed marriages. But those laws were overturned and Thomas got that constitutional right because the 9th Amendment says that basic human rights, like the right to interracial marriage and the right to abortion, DO NOT HAVE TO BE STATED IN THE CONSTITUTION in order to be constitutional rights because The Ninth Amendment says: “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
The current Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion not only violates the 9th Amendment, it violates the religious rights of many citizens. The ruling is supportive of the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church to which the six majority Justices belong.
In 1973, the Supreme Court set “viability” — the point at which a fetus can survive outside of the womb — as the dividing line after which some restrictions can be imposed on abortion rights because even with all of today’s medical miracles to keep a prematurely born or aborted fetus alive, of all the tens of thousands of cases 90% OF FETUSES BORN AT 22 WEEKS DO NOT SURVIVE, and data shows that the majority of those that manage to be kept alive live the rest of their lives with a combination of BIRTH DEFECTS that include mental impairment, cerebral palsy, breathing problems, blindness, deafness, and other disorders that often require frequent hospitalizations during their lifetimes.
The University of London scientist whose research is cited by the Supreme Court in its ruling to take away abortion rights says that his research has been misrepresented by Justice Alito and the Supreme Court’s activist conservative majority. Neuroscientist Dr. Giandomenico Iannetti says that the Court is ABSOLUTELY WRONG to say that his research shows that a fetus can feel pain when it is less than 24 weeks of development. “My results by no means imply that,” Dr. Iannetti declares. “I feel they were used in a clever way to make a point.” And Dr. John Wood, molecular neurobiologist at the University, points out that all serious scientists agree that a fetus can NOT feel pain until at least 24 weeks “and perhaps not even then.” Dr. Vania Apkarian, head of the Center for Transitional Pain Research at Chicago’s Feinberg School of Medicine, says that the medical evidence on a fetus not feeling pain before 24 weeks or longer has not changed in 50 years and remains “irrefutable”.
THE BIBLE DOES NOT CONDEMN ABORTION
The Talmud says that for the first 40 days of a woman’s pregnancy, the fetus is considered mere fluid and is just part of the mother’s body, like an appendix or liver. Only after the fetus’s head emerges from the womb at birth and takes a breath is the baby considered a “nefesh” – Hebrew for “soul” or “spirit” – a human person.
Legislated definitions of a fetal “personhood” prior to a live birth violate that religious belief of Jews and therefore also violate the Constitution.
Out of more than 600 laws of Moses, which includes the 10 Commandments, NONE — not one — comments on abortion. In fact, the Mosaic law in Exodus 21:22-25 clearly shows that causing the abortion of a fetus is NOT MURDER. Exodus 21:22-25 says that if a woman’s fetus is aborted as the result of an altercation with a man, the man who caused abortion should only pay a fine that is to be determined by the woman’s husband, but if the woman dies, the man is to be executed: “If a man strives with a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet there is no harm to the woman, he shall be punished according to what the woman’s husband determines and he shall pay as the judges determine.” So, the abortion is treated like the destruction of property, not murder.
There are Christian denominations that allow abortion in most instances; these Christian denominations include the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church USA. The United Methodist Church and Episcopal churches allow abortion in cases of medical necessity, and the United Universalist Association also allows abortion.
Legislation that makes abortion an act of murder would therefore also violate the religious beliefs and practices of these and other Christian denominations and would also violate the Constitution.
Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father of America and a shaper and signer of our Constitution, published a handbook titled “The American Instructor” that featured a detailed section on do-it-yourself abortion and conception prevention. The book was very popular throughout America, especially in the many farming towns where unwanted pregnancies were an economic hardship on farming families.
Franklin’s book should be republished and complimentary copies given to each of the self-appointed “originalists” on the Court who claim that America has always been opposed to abortion.
I’m Catholic, but I’m not going to unconstitutionally force my Catholic beliefs on others. Let the Holy Spirit speak to them.
https://www.propublica.org/article/abortion-roe-wade-alito-scotus-hale
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Thanks for the article. Right wing extremists have no shame about trampling on the rights of others to forward their agenda. Florida is a blueprint for right wing overreach. At least DeSantis is reluctantly allowing an abortion vote to go forward, but I still do not trust him. A vote for Trump is a vote to enable our hard fought for rights to be ignored or denied. The rogue Supreme Court would dream up some absurd legal document from the 1800s to support their bogus decision. Democracy is in peril, and we must defend our rights.
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Retired Teacher,
Your comment reminds me of something Kamala said. She said she would stand strong against the effort to make the U.S. a land where our daughters have fewer rights than their mothers.
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