How a rightwing machine stopped Arkansas's ballot to roll back one of the strictest abortion bans

Tue 29 Oct 2024 09.00 EDT

A Guardian investigation into the ballot’s demise reveals a confluence of rightwing actors working in parallel to ensure the measure was quashed before it ever reached voters

Theresa Lee was 22 weeks pregnant last year when her doctor confirmed the news: she had no amniotic fluid and the baby she was expecting, who she had named Cielle, was not growing.

In many states across the US, Lee would have been advised that terminating the doomed pregnancy was an option, and possibly the safest course to protect her own life.

But in the state of Arkansas, Lee was told she had just one choice: wait it out.

A doctor who had confirmed the diagnosis was apologetic but insistent: the state’s laws meant he could be fined or jailed if he performed an abortion. In the wake of the US supreme court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v Wade, Arkansas activated a so-called trigger law that made all abortion illegal except if a woman was in an acute medical emergency and facing death. There are no other exceptions: not for rape victims, minors or fatal fetal

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/29/arkansas-abortion-ban-ballot