Four women and a physician in Arkansas filed a lawsuit against the state on Wednesday over its abortion ban, claiming the law is unconstitutional.
Plaintiffs seek to strike down a ban that was enacted immediately after the US Supreme Court’s 2022 opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade. The state has banned abortion since, with a narrow exception to save a pregnant person’s life.
Amplify Legal, who represents the plaintiffs, argued that the ban “denies pregnant Arkansans life-saving medical care and autonomy over their health decisions, and leaves doctors with no meaningful ability to distinguish between care that is legal and care that will subject them to criminal prosecution.”
The four women bring suit sought abortion medical care in the state and were denied due to the ban, according to the complaint. Two fled the state for emergency abortion care, one was forced to remain in the state and was “denied care for a doomed pregnancy for weeks on end,” and one was denied an abortion after surviving a sexual assault, according to the lawsuit.
Plaintiffs argued that the language of the statutory ban is ambiguous and does not adequately define which types of “medical emergencies” are exempted. To illustrate the point, the complaint recounted experiences of Chad Taylor, OB/GYN physician, and detailed multiple times the ban confused his duty toward patients and hindered his ability to provide adequate treatment.
“For over three years, Dr. Taylor has been forced to practice OB/GYN medicine under the constant imminent threat of enforcement of an Arkansas’s unconstitutional abortion bans,” the suit states. “Dr. Taylor regularly encounters patients with obstetrical complications where it is unclear to him and his colleagues if the standard of care for that patient—offering termination—is still legal.”
Lead plaintiff Emily Waldorf sought help from Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ office while in the hospital during a pregnancy-related medical emergency, but was allegedly “ignored.”
“Arkansas’s abortion ban took away my ability to make decisions about my own life,” Waldorf said in a statement. “Abortion is health care, and yet I had to travel across three states by ambulance just to get the care I needed. This can happen to anyone, and I don’t want anyone else to go through what I did.”
The ban was enacted June 2022 and aims “to abolish abortion in Arkansas and protect the lives of unborn children.”
Other states have faced similar challenges after enacting near-total abortion bans. Earlier this month, the Wyoming Supreme Court found its state law generally banning abortion and use of abortion pills was unconstitutional.
