The Arkansas Supreme Court has upheld the state’s rejection of signature petitions for a November ballot measure that would have enshrined expanded access to abortion in the state’s constitution, with the ruling winning praise from pro-life groups.
“We find that the Secretary correctly refused to count the signatures collected by paid canvassers because the sponsor failed to file the paid canvasser training certification,” the court’s majority opinion reads.
However, the judges rejected Thurston’s motion to dismiss the legal challenge to his decision for lack of jurisdiction, while dissenting justices argued that he should have allowed a “provisional cure period” for the group behind the ballot initiative to correct discrepancies related to signature collection.
The now-defunct ballot initiative proposed a state constitutional amendment that would have allowed abortion up to 18 weeks gestation without restrictions and beyond 18 weeks in cases of rape or incest, threats to the woman’s life or health, and when the baby is not expected to survive birth.
Currently, abortion is outlawed in Arkansas except in cases to save the life of the mother.
AFLG, which did not respond to a request for comment on the Arkansas Supreme Court ruling by publication time, had opposed Thurston’s rejection of the signatures, arguing in a legal challenge that it should have been given more time to provide the missing documentation.
The majority disagreed, arguing that the facts in the case were “undisputed” and, as a matter of law, the state had correctly rejected the signatures.
“As it failed to obtain this number of signatures, AFLG is not entitled to any further relief,” the majority wrote, while ordering Thurston to count 87,675 signatures for which there was no grounds for rejection.
However, this leaves AFLG roughly 3,000 signatures short of the 90,704 needed to put the initiative on the November ballot.
The dissenting justices sided with the group, with Chief Justice John Dan Kemp arguing in dissent that he would have ordered a conditional certification of the proposed amendment in light of the Aug. 22 certification deadline.
Supporters of the Arkansas abortion amendment argued it would have protected women’s rights by expanding access to abortion in certain cases.
Arkansas pro-life groups praised the Supreme Court ruling, claiming that the amendment was too extreme.
“This is a good decision. The Arkansas Abortion Amendment is a deceptively worded measure that would write abortion into the state constitution,“ Family Council Action Committee Executive Director Jerry Cox said in a statement. ”It legalizes unrestricted abortion for any reason during the first five months of pregnancy. Its various exceptions would allow abortions up to birth in many cases.”
Cox said that the proposed amendment also lacked medical licensing and health safety standards for abortions, while overriding conflicting state laws, potentially preventing Arkansas from enforcing regulations like parental consent or bans on taxpayer-funded abortions.
“Arkansas’ women and unborn children will be protected from unrestricted abortion as a result [of the ruling],” he said. “Arkansas remains the most pro-life state in America. That’s something to celebrate.”
After the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision that ended the nationwide right to abortion, there has been an effort to let voters in each state decide the issue individually.
