From the Arkansas Advocate:
A circuit judge last month dismissed the first legal challenge to Arkansas’ abortion ban, but the case could be revived due to a recent state Supreme Court ruling on how such lawsuits are handled.
Pulaski County Judge Cara Connors is considering whether to reverse her decision last month dismissing the lawsuit filed by six women and an obstetrician-gynecologist challenging Arkansas’ near-total abortion ban.
Connors filed an order to dismiss the case on April 29, citing a 2025 state law removing county courts’ authority to hear certain constitutional challenges.
But her ruling was issued the morning of April 30, shortly after the Arkansas Supreme Court declared that law, Act 975, unconstitutional.
North Little Rock attorney Chris Burks argued on behalf of the plaintiffs that the Supreme Court’s ruling means a circuit court “does, in fact, have subject matter jurisdiction over this case” since Connors’ order was issued after the fact.
The case could be the first major fallout from the court’s unanimous ruling against the predominantly Republican Legislature’s effort to change the courts’ authority over constitutional challenges. Act 975’s passage followed several high-profile instances of judges in Pulaski County striking down state laws.
Act 975 transferred the authority to hear certain lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of state laws from circuit courts to appeals courts. The Supreme Court ruled the law violated Amendment 80 to the Arkansas Constitution, which spells out the authority of circuit courts.
On April 23, Arkansas Solicitor General Autumn Hamit Patterson cited Act 975 as a reason for the challenge to the abortion ban to be dismissed.
“We will continue to let our filings speak for themselves as we vigorously defend Arkansas’ abortion laws,” Jeff LeMaster, a spokesperson for Attorney General Tim Griffin, said Wednesday.
Griffin’s office has until Monday to respond to the plaintiffs’ request for relief from Connors’ ruling.
The women and doctor challenging Arkansas’ abortion ban are represented by Amplify Legal, the litigation arm of Abortion in America. Abortion in America is an abortion-rights advocacy group co-founded by former Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, who died last year.
Amplify Legal declined to comment Wednesday on the lawsuit’s next steps.
Arkansas has banned abortion, with a narrow exception to save a pregnant person’s life, since June 2022 under a law that took effect when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Amplify Legal’s argument in the lawsuit is that the abortion ban violates the Arkansas Constitution’s provision that “enjoying and defending life and liberty [and] pursuing their own happiness” are “inherent and inalienable rights.”
The case also relies on the constitutional law principle that a criminal law cannot be too vague for people to know how to comply with it.
The plaintiffs asked the court in April to temporarily block enforcement of the ban. Arkansas law makes it a felony punishable by a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, a maximum fine of $100,000 or both for a medical professional who performs an abortion.
One of the plaintiffs, Theresa Van of Fort Smith, continued her pregnancy for seven weeks after learning it was nonviable because doctors denied her an abortion.
The other five women traveled to Illinois or Kansas to receive abortions. Three had nonviable pregnancies, one had been sexually assaulted and one did not want children, according to the amended complaint.
