LITTLE ROCK — Legislation barring abortions as soon as six weeks after conception handily cleared the Arkansas Senate on Thursday.

Supporters of the bill said they want to protect life, while three female senators lamented that men are restricting women’s decisions about their bodies.

Meanwhile, a House committee Thursday approved a bill banning abortion past 20 weeks, when some doctors say a fetus can feel pain, and a bill to prevent abortion coverage in government managed insurance plans mandated by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Senate Bill 134 by Jason Rapert, R-Bigelow, would prohibit a doctor from performing an abortion if the fetus has a heartbeat, except to save the mother’s life or in cases of rape or incest.

Doctors who violate the law would be guilty of a Class D felony, punishable by up to six years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

The Senate voted 26-8 to approve the legislation.

Twenty-three men (18 Republicans and five Democrats) and three Republican women voted for it, while eight Democrats (five men and three women) voted against it.

“I believe that if there is a heartbeat, there is a life,” Rapert told senators, urging them to approve his bill.

The Arkansas State Medical Board would define the method used to determine whether a fetus has a heartbeat. A fetal heartbeat can generally be heard after six weeks of development.

According to the state Department of Health, of the 4,033 abortions performed in Arkansas in 2011, 33 percent took place before seven weeks of pregnancy, 53.43 percent between seven and 14 weeks and 13.46 percent between 14 and 21 weeks. Two abortions occurred after 21 weeks, the department said.

Early in pregnancy a heartbeat is commonly detected using a vaginal probe ultrasound, where a gray, wand like device about 9 inches long with a bulb on the end, is inserted into the uterus.

Sen. Stephanie Flowers, D-Pine Bluff, asked Rapert: “Can you imagine what kind of feeling that [vaginal probe] would cause when inserted into a woman?”

Rapert replied, “No.”

Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, said discussion of the bill is about choice and an anti-choice.

“Women make up over half of the people in this state and yet we don’t have the respect for them and for their doctors to make these medical decisions without our intervention,” Elliott said. “Men constantly make these decisions about women and their ability to make medical choices.”

Sen. Gary Stubblefield, R-Branch, said the decision to have an abortion is not just about the woman.

“It’s about another human being. It’s about another soul,” he said.

Sen. Linda Chesterfield, D-Little Rock, said women find out they are pregnant after about six weeks.

“I don’t want to go back to a time where women used kerosene and clothes hangers because they had no choice,” she said. “I am tired of men bringing bills about what women do with their bodies.”

Sen. Alan Clark, R-Hot Springs, said he respects Chesterfield and Elliott, but “my wife, and my mother, and my sisters and my aunts and my nieces, to a person, asked me to be here and asked me to make this vote,” he said. “So [as for] this argument that we can’t speak for women, some days I speak for little girls and women.”

An anti-abortion group, National Right to Life, estimates that 53 million pregnancies have been terminated nationwide since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The ruling states that a woman can legally have an abortion until the fetus is viable or able to live outside the mother, generally around the start of the third trimester.

A 1992 case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, said medical advances had made fetuses viable earlier than that.

“And you ask me to respect the opinions and the rights of women. I will tell you, based on statistics, half of those 53 million little babies were women,” Rapert said. “We know there is no rational basis to continue forward with abortions that we have in the nation.”

Abortion rights were also debated in the House Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee, where members approved by a voice vote a bill banning abortion 20 weeks after conception after nearly two hours of testimony.

House Bill 1037 by Rep. Andy Mayberry, R-Hensley, would make it a Class D felony to perform an abortion 20 or more weeks after conception. The bill has an exemption if the mother’s health or life is in danger. It also states that a doctor who performs an abortion after 20 weeks should do it in such a way that the fetus has an opportunity to survive. The bill doesn’t describe that process.

According to the Arkansas Department of Health, 48 of the 4,033 abortions performed in the state in 2011, or1.19 percent, occurred after 20 weeks.

Mayberry’s second child, Katie, was born with spina bifida. He and his wife, Julie Mayberry, spoke about feeling pressured to abort the pregnancy.

“Under current Arkansas law it’s OK to take a very cruel and barbaric and inhumane method of destroying a life, a life capable of feeling pain,” Mayberry told committee members. “I don’t think that is OK and I don’t believe each of you in your hearts think that that is OK. We face a moral dilemma.”

Little Rock obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. Richard Wyatt told stories of women who were glad they decided to complete their pregnancies even though they were told the children would not survive. He counsels against abortion, he said.

“It is better for the ladies, for the patients, to maintain their pregnancy. In my opinion I think that is better for their mental health than when they elect to terminate the pregnancy early,” he said.

Obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. Janet Cathey of Little Rock told the committee members that people don’t commonly terminate pregnancies after 20 weeks without a medical reason.

She told stories of fetal anomalies such as when kidneys or lungs don’t develop. Cathey said she is concerned that the bill will ban an abortion even when the fetus has insurmountable health problems.

“If this bill were law, these women would have been forced to continue their pregnancies to term even though this child had zero chance for survival,” Cathey said.

Similar abortion restrictions have been approved in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Nebraska.

Under Arkansas state law, doctors must inform women seeking an abortion past 20 weeks at least 24 hours before they get an abortion that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks or more. According to the Health Department, 178 women received the information in 2011. Of those, 81 or 45.5 percent, had abortions.

The committee also approved HB1100 by Rep. Butch Wilkins, D-Bono, which would block abortion coverage from insurance plans sold on the insurance exchange, a marketplace for health coverage created by the federal Affordable Care Act in 2010, which goes into effect in 2014.

Women wanting abortion coverage would have to pay extra for a special policy not subsidized by the government.

On Tuesday, HB1100 fell one vote short in the committee because several supporters were absent. They showed up Thursday, and the committee approved the bill by a voice vote.

The American Civil Liberties Union has threatened to sue if the bill becomes law.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/01/2013