The Arkansas Department of Health 2023 report on abortion numbers is out, and the numbers suggest great success for the pro-lifers among us.
Actually, it’s the lack of numbers that prompted a celebratory June 3 press release from the anti-abortion-crusading Family Council. Jerry Cox and Co. cheered the health department tallies showing zero abortions performed in the state, zero complications from abortions and zero abortions necessary to save a mother’s life.
“These reports are great news,” the Family Council release says. “Arkansas has successfully prohibited abortion except to save the life of the mother. Arkansas’ pro-life laws are protecting women, and they are saving unborn children. That is something to celebrate.”
Hate to burst bubbles here, but we all know Arkansans are still getting abortions, even within state lines. Many of those are medical abortions with pills gotten through the mail, much to Attorney General Tim Griffin‘s chagrin. Roughly 53% of abortions nationwide happen via medication.
The statistic about zero abortions to save a mother’s life also ignores reality. Undoubtedly, some Arkansas women in 2023 experienced ectopic pregnancies or other complications that required the termination of a pregnancy. But Arkansas law defines “abortion” to exclude ectopic pregnancies or the removal of a fetus that died during a miscarriage — a semantic trick that allows the state to avoid the uncomfortable fact that abortion is often medically necessary.
Karen Musick, co-founder of the Arkansas Abortion Support Network and an abortion rights missionary, chuckled under her breath when she learned official numbers suggest we’ve eradicated abortion in Arkansas.
“It’s crazy that it’s zero, but I believe that it’s zero to them, through their reporting avenues,” she said.
And it makes sense. Who would officially report an abortion in a state where abortion is illegal?
But zero reported abortions doesn’t mean zero abortions. Federal law protects the rights of women to receive abortion medications in the mail, even in Arkansas.
Women needing or wanting an abortion past the 12-week mark — after which the abortion pill isn’t considered a good option — can travel to states where abortions are still legal.
“They don’t know how many people have had abortions at home or have left the state to get abortions,” Musick said.
We don’t know that number either, but I’d gamble lots of money on it being greater than zero. Women with the means have always and will always “go camping in Colorado.”
For women without the means, there are helpers. The Abortion Support Network raised and spent about $400,000 in 2023 to help women make arrangements and cover the costs to travel across state lines to access abortion care.
Abortion access ended in Arkansas two years ago when the U.S. Supreme Court reversed what had been a nationwide constitutional guarantee to reproductive autonomy. After the court’s Dobbs decision vacated the abortion rights that had been protected for nearly 50 years under Roe v. Wade, Arkansas enacted a trigger law barring all abortions except to save a mother’s life.
Musick is among the volunteers racing against a July 5 deadline to collect the 91,000 signatures needed to put the Arkansas Abortion Amendment on the ballot. The amendment would restore abortion access through 18 weeks after fertilization, and would also allow it in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal anomaly or to protect the health of the mother.
Right now, the abortion ban puts women’s lives in danger unnecessarily. Arkansas has the highest maternal mortality rate in the country, and Musick said she worried clinicians are shying away from performing necessary abortions out of fear of the legal consequences.
“What the zero tells me is, if you look at how many people have died from childbirth, there are people being put at much greater risk than they need to be,” she said.