Abortion opponents in Arkansas are celebrating Friday’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court which said there is not a constitutional right to an abortion and returns the issue for states to decide.
The ruling, which overturned the cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, activates Arkansas’ “trigger law” that immediately makes abortion illegal, with no exceptions for rape or incest.
Jerry Cox is executive director of the Family Council, a conservative, anti-abortion group based in Little Rock. In a news conference Friday at the state Capitol, he called the ruling a “triumph of democracy.”
“For the last 50 years, abortion has been in the hands of unelected judges, abortion policy has been dictated upon the states by unelected judges,” Cox said. “Today, those judges have said this issue belongs at the state level, that it belongs in the state capitol to be debated where people make the laws.”
Cox says his group does not currently have plans to call for restrictions and penalties for women who seek abortions outside of Arkansas. Now that abortion is effectively illegal in the state, he says the group's goal is to make the procedure “irrelevant.”
“We need to find ways to help women with unplanned pregnancies, women who feel like they have no other choice but maybe to go get an abortion. We need to create a culture of life that spreads all across the state of Arkansas, so that those women never feel that abortion is their only choice,” Cox said.
Cox called on state lawmakers to increase the amount of funding for pregnancy resource centers, which are typically faith-based nonprofits that dissuade people with unplanned pregnancies from getting an abortion. About 50 such centers exist in Arkansas now, and received $1 million in state funding in the past year. Cox said he’d like lawmakers to increase that to $5 million in the next general legislative session.
“That’s something the legislature needs to revisit when they convene in January to talk about something more permanent to provide a funding stream for these pregnancy help organizations,” Cox said. “If Arkansas is going to make abortion mostly illegal, which we have done and we’re good with, it’s time for us now to step up and help women and girls with unplanned pregnancies.”
When asked about possible tweaks to Arkansas’ trigger law, Cox said he’s confident in its ability to effectively outlaw abortion in its current form.
