IN THIS UNPRECEDENTED ASSAULT ON WOMEN, ARKANSAS REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS ADVOCATES FIGHT BACK.
T
he my-body-my-choice mantra co-opted by anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers in recent years does not apply below the belt. At least not for women in Arkansas, whose equal rights under the law ended on June 24, 2022. No bodily autonomy for you, you dirty Whores of Babylon! Watching Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge blubber with happiness as she signed the draconian measure into law was stomach-churning. With no allowances made even for victims of rape or incest, Arkansas’s cruel and shortsighted law might save a few gooey globs of cells but is guaranteed to kill women. Probably lots of them. But reproductive rights activists in Arkansas and the rest of the country aren’t about to give up. The Arkansas Abortion Support Network pledges to help women access abortion care out of state, offering resources financial and logistic to get them to Illinois, North Carolina and other places where abortion is still allowable under state law. Doctors and public health experts are directing patients to online resources to help them procure abortion pills by mail. Planned Parenthood is amping up education and outreach to help women get hold of contraceptives, even as the constitutional right to birth control comes back under fire by right-wing commanders at the U.S. Capitol. In this month’s issue we hear from law professors, nurses, activists and midwives who stand ready to help women navigate the bleak future until the revolution is at hand. Recent battles for equal rights and bodily autonomy for Arkansas women are lost, but the guerilla war to regain them is well underway. When reproductive rights advocates say they won’t go back, believe them.
ARKTIMES.COM
AUGUST 2022 23
