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Advocates on both sides of the abortion issue are waiting to see whether -- and how soon -- Arkansas' new law to ban most abortions in the state will make it up to the Supreme Court.

Tuesday by Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) states, "A person shall not purposely perform or attempt to perform an abortion except to save the life of a pregnant woman in a medical emergency." Performing or attempting an abortion in any other circumstance will result in a $100,000 fine or 10 years in prison, or both.

"We passed a trigger bill last session, in the event of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, that Arkansas would go back to the original law" permitting abortion only in cases where the life of the mother was threatened, Rose Mimms, executive director of Arkansas Right to Life, an anti-abortion group based in Little Rock, said in a phone interview. "We just made the determination, why not go ahead and go for it now, especially with the Supreme Court nominations that we got from the most pro-life president ever."

"Of course, you can't always be 100% sure on the Supreme Court justices, how they're going to rule, so we figured, 'Hey, let's get a case up to them we feel might be the one that would cause them to overturn Roe v. Wade,'" she continued. "That's what we're all trying to do -- all the states that are passing legislation like this. We felt the strongest possible would be just the 'life of the mother' exception."

One of the bill's opponents was Planned Parenthood. "If Arkansas politicians truly cared about the quality of life for people in this state, especially women and children, they would expand access to comprehensive sex education and contraception, and address the dangerously high rates of maternal mortality and infant mortality in the state," Gloria Pedro, regional manager of public policy and organizing for Arkansas and Oklahoma, Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said in a statement issued after Hutchinson signed the bill. "Instead, anti-abortion politicians are wasting taxpayer time and money writing a law that's the equivalent of a demand letter to the Supreme Court."

The law, which will take effect 90 days after the Arkansas legislature adjourns, specifically exempts women who have had abortions from being punished, and also clarifies that the measure does not bar the sale or use of contraceptives, as long as the contraceptive "is administered before the time when a pregnancy could be determined through conventional medical testing" and is used in accordance with manufacturer's instructions.

The law also allows for physicians to defend themselves from prosecution "if a licensed physician provides medical treatment to a pregnant woman which results in the accidental or unintentional physical injury or death to the unborn child." (Italics by Arkansas state legislature)

The legislature also had the Supreme Court in its sights; the preface to the law reads in part, "The State of Arkansas urgently pleads with the United States Supreme Court to do the right thing, as they did in one of their greatest cases, Brown v. Board of Education, which overturned a 58-year-old precedent of the United States, and reverse, cancel, overturn, and annul Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey," referring to Supreme Court decisions in favor of abortion rights.

However, "as a practical matter, it would take years for this particular ban to reach the Supreme Court, and current Supreme Court precedent binds the lower courts to conclude that this ban is blatantly unconstitutional," said Meagan Burrows, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), in an email. The ACLU is planning to contest the law in court.

Lawmakers did get some pushback about not including exceptions for rape or incest -- -- in the bill.

"There are some pro-life lawmakers that had that exception, and we accept it when we have to ... We work with candidates like that, and our governor's one of them," said Mimms. "We love him; he's a great champion for life, but we felt strongly enough this time that we didn't have to do that. Not only was the governor wanting that exception, we had a few lawmakers also that wanted that exception -- but we had the votes. We had the votes to pass it without it."

Arkansas is not the only state to have recently passed a strict abortion law. A law recently passed in South Carolina, for example, bans all abortions after 6 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for rape, incest, and saving the life of the mother; however, that law was by a federal judge until a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood plays out.

"Although it is a 6-week ban rather than a total ban, the reality is that most people are not able to identify a pregnancy, make their decision, and obtain abortion care within 2 weeks of missing their first period," Jessica Arons, senior policy and legislative counsel at the ACLU, said in an email. "So the effect of these two bans is one and the same."

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) declined to comment on the Arkansas or South Carolina laws specifically, but said in a statement to 番茄社区 that "ACOG strongly opposes political, unscientific efforts to restrict individuals' ability to get the care they need, including limits and bans on abortion care. Abortion is an essential component of medical care and ACOG opposes political interference in the ability of clinicians to provide evidence-based, compassionate care to all people."

"Lawmakers must support health policies based on sound science and evidence," the statement continued. "Politicians must seek to improve access to evidence-based care, not restrict it. Legislative restrictions on medical care fundamentally interfere with the patient–clinician relationship and physicians' ethical obligation to honor and respect patient decisions about the course of their care."

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