As legal action continues on Arkansas’s effort to make abortion unobtainable in Arkansas, a mention is in order of Attorney General Leslie Rutledge‘s staggering hypocrisy.

An article in the Democrat-Gazette today details continuing legal action on several fronts in Planned Parenthood’s challenge of state laws aimed at shutting down its clinics in Arkansas by setting unnecessary requirements the state knows the agency can’t meet, including a doctor with hospital admitting privileges, requiring an outdated and damaging-to-women protocol for dispensation of miscarriage-inducing drugs and ever more cumbersome waiting periods for women that require multiple visits to faraway clinics.

Advertisement

The outrage of the morning came in a citation of the state’s defense of the need for a doctor with admitting privileges in the event of complications from pharmaceutical abortions (a procedure safer than natural childbirth).

Patients who experience complications often end up at emergency rooms, with doctors who often aren’t trained in how to handle the complications and with whom many women aren’t forthright out of fear of being stigmatized, the state attorneys say.

They contend that the contract-physician requirement “offers multiple benefits, including ensuring continuity of care, protecting the integrity of the medical profession, and preserving and protecting Arkansans’ access to critical emergency care.”

Stigmatize women? Really? Stigmatize women? And who created this atmosphere of stigmatization about abortion? Who calls a constitutionally protected medical procedure murder? Who takes every means fair or foul to deny women autonomy over their bodies?

Advertisement

The state legislature, the governor of Arkansas and the attorney general of Arkansas presume to tell women what medical services they may or may not have. They practice medicine on women’s bodies without a license. They have been attempting in court to force public identification of women who are plaintiffs in the suit and to otherwise obtain private medical records. They want to publicly identify any doctor who might be willing to provide medical services to Planned Parenthood, hoping PRECISELY to stigmatize them. It is legal bullying, no more or less, aimed at making a hunted and despised class of women who seek to terminate a pregnancy in the first seven or eight weeks of pregnancy by a safe and proven method, not to mention those who’d provide medical services for them.

Ensure continuity of care? What a joke. Ensure no care and coat hangers is more like it.

Advertisement

Hypocrite of the day, week, month and year is Attorney General Leslie Rutledge and those who write up these bodaciously dishonest legal arguments for her.

Invest in the future of great journalism in Arkansas

Join the ranks of the 63,000 Facebook followers, 58,000 Twitter followers, 35,000 Arkansas blog followers, and 70,000 daily email blasts who know that the Arkansas Times is the go-to source for tough, determined, and feisty journalism that holds the powerful accountable. For 50 years, our progressive, alternative newspaper in Little Rock has been on the front lines of the fight for truth, and with your support, we can do even more. By subscribing or donating to the Arkansas Times, you'll not only have access to all of our articles, but you'll also be helping us hire more writers and expand our coverage. Don't miss out on the opportunity to make a difference with your subscription or donation to the Arkansas Times today.

Previous article Suspect identified, in custody in New York blast Next article Correcting the record on the casino gambling proposal