With withering public support for baby-killing, abortionists have only one hope: activist pro-abortion courts.
Last week, Arkansas enacted a dramatic law restricting abortion after 12 weeks gestation.
"There are so many battles in so many states that are very similar that I think the bulk of the [Arkansas] law will, without question, make itself up to the [Supreme] Court."For background, read Pro-life Legislation Floods America and also read Eroding Roe v. Wade State-by-state as well as Pro-life Position Prevails in Polls
-- Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List
UPDATE 7/8/13: Abortionists Lament Ever-greater State Limits
-- From "Anti-abortion law makes Arkansas ground zero in intensifying national debates" by Shannon Bream, FoxNews.com 3/11/13
. . . Pro-choice groups, citing Roe v. Wade and subsequent Supreme Court precedents, feel confident it's a fight they will win.
"The [Arkansas] bill is clearly unconstitutional, clearly inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent," Louise Melling, the American Civil Liberties Union's deputy legal director, said. ACLU officials said they are planning to jointly file a legal challenge with the Center for Reproductive Rights before the Arkansas law is set to go into effect.
While the so-called "Heartbeat Law" is hashed out in court, [State Sen. Jason Rapert, the Republican who authored the law,] says he plans to introduce a measure that would ban state officials from allowing any state or federal funds from flowing to organizations that perform abortions, namely Planned Parenthood.
If he succeeds, Arkansas would join a number of other states that have blocked funding to the family planning organization, including Colorado, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin.
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From "Why Have So Many States Banned Abortion?" by Chris Good, ABC News 3/12/13
Abortions are becoming illegal in America at a rapid clip.
Before 2010, no states banned abortions outright at any stage of pregnancy. Nebraska started the trend with a 20-week abortion ban in April 2010. In 2011, Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, and Oklahoma followed suit, and in 2012, Arizona, Georgia, and Louisiana passed curbs of their own. Last week, Arkansas became the first state to approve an abortion ban this year.
Abortion-rights activists are worried about a ban under consideration in North Dakota, plus a continuing wave of regulations on abortion clinics that, activists say, have forced clinics to close by making it impossible for them to operate. More of those regulations have advanced in recent years, too, opponents warn.
Combined with two major court cases that shifted the legal standards for limiting abortions, GOP gains at the state level have made it easier for groups like Americans United for Life (AUL), a national anti-abortion group that drafts model legislation in Washington, D.C., and works to pass it through state legislatures.
If states keep passing laws, and anti-abortion activists get their way, the Supreme Court may have to decide whether it will take up the issue once again.
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From "Arkansas’s Abortion Ban and One Man’s Strong Will" by Erik Eckholm, New York Times 3/11/13
Fetal heartbeat laws are already under consideration by legislatures in Ohio, Kansas and North Dakota, and have a good chance of passage in the coming year, their proponents believe, even though legal experts say they have little chance of surviving in federal courts.
Similar proposals are less far along in Kentucky, Mississippi and Wyoming.
Evangelical groups like the Family Research Council in Washington are among the enthusiastic promoters of fetal-heartbeat limits. But traditional leaders of the anti-abortion movement, like National Right to Life and the Roman Catholic Church, think such laws will quickly be overturned in federal courts, reinforcing the existing limit set by the Supreme Court that women have a constitutional right to an abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, usually around 24 weeks into pregnancy.
The largest anti-abortion groups prefer an incremental strategy that has resulted in hundreds of state laws to narrow abortion rights, like requiring women to have sonograms beforehand and imposing longer waiting periods.
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