CV NEWS FEED // In a major setback to the abortion lobby in Arkansas, the state’s Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin has denied an attempt to put an Ohio-style pro-abortion constitutional amendment on the state’s 2024 ballot for the time being.
The rejected measure was known by the popular name of “The Arkansas Reproductive Healthcare Amendment.” It was shepherded by “Arkansas For Limited Government,” a pro-abortion group explicitly formed to put the measure on the ballot, similar to the group that was behind Ohio’s successful Issue 1 amendment.
The amendment’s text stated that if it passed Arkansas would not be able to “penalize, delay or restrict access to abortion within 18 weeks of conception, or in cases of rape, incest, in the event of a fatal fetal anomaly, or when abortion is needed to protect the pregnant female’s life or health.”
In a Tuesday letter to a representative of “Arkansas For Limited Government,” Griffin stated that he took issue with the amendment’s ambiguous wording and “misleading” title.
“Having reviewed the text of your proposed constitutional amendment, as well as your proposed popular name and ballot title,” he wrote,
I must reject your popular name and ballot title due to ambiguities in the text of your proposed measure that prevent me from ensuring that the ballot title you have submitted, or any ballot title I would substitute, is not misleading.
Specifically, the attorney general indicated that the amendment did not provide clear definitions of the terms “access” and “health” to its prospective voters.
“My decision to certify or reject a popular name and ballot title is unrelated to my view of the proposed measure’s merits,” Griffin added. “I am not authorized to consider the measure’s merits when considering certification.”
Jordan Boyd of The Federalist pointed out that Griffin’s action could make all the difference where pro-life efforts in Ohio failed.
“Ohio’s recently passed constitutional amendment was so deceptively worded that it left even the most staunch of abortion activists scratching their heads,” Boyd noted:
By demanding clarity and exposing abortion activists’ deceptive petitioning practices, Griffin and other Republican Attorneys General like Ashley Moody in Florida and Marty Jackley in South Dakota ensured their states would not immediately fall prey to the unlimited abortion-for-all activism sweeping the nation.
>> STATES THAT MAY HOLD OHIO-STYLE ABORTION VOTES IN 2024 <<
In October, Moody penned an op-ed in Florida’s Voice blasting the proposed pro-abortion ballot initiative in her state as “one of the worst I have seen.”
“As just one example of how misleading this initiative is, the initiative creates a right to abortion through ‘viability,’” she explained. “As any mother knows, ‘viability’ has two meanings when it comes to pregnancy.”
In early November, Jackley conveyed a similar tone in a letter to a representative of the pro-abortion group behind South Dakota’s proposed referendum.
“Any suggestion that your proposed abortion amendment makes abortion legal only for the first trimester is contrary to the language of the proposed amendment,” he wrote.
