Niraj Chokshi and Derrick Bryson Taylor

The decision, issued minutes before midnight Tuesday by Judge Kristine G. Baker of the Eastern District of Arkansas, delays enforcement of the laws by up to two weeks. The delay was requested as part of a broader suit seeking to strike down the laws, brought by the clinic, Little Rock Family Planning Services; Planned Parenthood; the American Civil Liberties Union; and local doctors.

In Tuesday’s ruling, Baker concluded that all three restrictions — the 18-week ban, a ban on abortions sought because of a diagnosis of Down syndrome and stricter requirements on who may perform the procedure — all seemed likely to be found unconstitutional based on the evidence provided so far.

“Since the record at this stage of the proceedings indicates that Arkansas women seeking abortions face an imminent threat to their constitutional rights, the court concludes that they will suffer irreparable harm without injunctive relief,” she wrote.

In a statement Wednesday, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge of Arkansas said the attempt to block the laws was “frustrating, but not unforeseen.”

“The action was only the initial step, and I anticipate further action in the near future in our defense of these laws that protect the life of mothers and their unborn children,” Rutledge said.

Most states follow the precedent set by the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which said abortion is legal until the fetus reaches viability, usually between 24 to 28 weeks. But conservatives across the country this year have pushed for stricter restrictions, aimed, in some cases, squarely at challenging that precedent.

Arkansas was among nine states that passed bills to restrict abortions in 2019, limiting the procedure to the middle of the second trimester at 18 weeks in what was one of the most restrictive such laws in the nation.

According to the Arkansas Department of Health, the majority of abortions at the state’s three abortion clinics take place before the 16- to 18-week pregnancy period, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported. In 2017, the health department had a record of 3,249 abortions, and of those, 173 were done at 16 weeks or beyond, and only 75 of those were done after 18 weeks.

Because the date of conception can be difficult to determine, doctors measure the start of pregnancy from the first day of a woman’s last menstrual period, which is usually two weeks before a fetus is conceived.

Even if the law imposing new requirements on who can perform abortions does not force Little Rock Family Planning Services to close, it would likely drastically limit the ability of abortion providers to meet the needs of women in the state, Baker wrote.

“The record evidence indicates that anywhere from 57-66% of Arkansas women who wish to have an abortion will be unable to obtain an abortion,” she wrote.

In a statement, Holly Dickson, legal director and interim executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas, welcomed Baker’s ruling and vowed to continue fighting to have the laws struck down.

“Personal medical decisions are just that — personal — and politicians have no business barging into people’s private decisions, shutting down clinics and blocking people from care that they need,” she said.

The fight to overturn Roe v. Wade has intensified in recent years. Without it, a large amount of women in the South and Midwest would be living without an abortion clinic nearby. The country’s abortion rate would be 13% lower without the landmark ruling, a new analysis found, and it would mostly affect low-income people who couldn’t afford to travel to a legal clinic.

“Wide swaths of the country face potential dramatic increases in travel distances to states where abortion would likely remain legal,” Caitlin Knowles Myers, an economist at Middlebury College and author of a new study, recently said to The New York Times. “Affluent women generally find a way to get there, but 75% of abortion patients are poor or near-poor.”

If Roe v. Wade were struck down, one expert painted a bleak picture for Arkansas residents.

“I don’t think anyone in Massachusetts is going to find any difference in their life as a result,” Phillip Levine, an economist at Wellesley College and a leading researcher on the topic, recently told The Times. “But if you’re in Arkansas or Nebraska, if you don’t have means, it’s going to be virtually impossible for you to get an abortion legally.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/us/abortion-arkansas-laws.html" id="0bc6bd58-ee37-330e-ac4f-014756d955eb">The New York Times</a>.

Federal Judge Blocks Arkansas Anti-Abortion Laws for Now

In an eleventh-hour ruling, a federal judge temporarily blocked three new abortion restrictions from taking effect in Arkansas on Wednesday, including a law that bans the procedure after 18 weeks and another that could threaten to close the state’s only surgical abortion clinic.

Arkansas was among nine states that passed bills to limit abortions this year. The state voted to limit the procedure to the middle of the second trimester at 18 weeks, making the law one of the most restrictive in the nation.

Most states follow the precedent set by the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which said abortion is legal until the fetus reaches viability, usually between 24 to 28 weeks.

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Niraj Chokshi and Derrick Bryson Taylor

Articles written by the author

Federal Judge Blocks Arkansas Anti-Abortion Laws for Now

Federal Judge Blocks Arkansas Anti-Abortion Laws for Now