An Arkansas House of Representatives committee voted down a bill Tuesday that would add exceptions to the state’s abortion ban for lethal fetal abnormalities.
Currently Arkansas’ ban on abortion only has an expectation for medical emergency to save the life of the mother. House Bill 1301 would add the exception “in the case of a fetal abnormality incompatible with life.” The House Committee in Public Health, Welfare and Labor voted down the bill on a voice vote.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Nicole Clowney, D-Fayetteville, said the additional exception would give pregnant women “a narrow, but critical exception to our state’s total abortion ban.” Clowney said the bill would permit abortion in cases where “crucial parts of the baby’s anatomy — the brain, the skull, the kidneys — fail to develop.”
“This exception is exceedingly narrow,” Clowney said. “I want to be clear that it only applies to women whose babies have no chance of surviving outside the womb.”