On Wednesday, Arkansans for Limited Government filed reports with the state Ethics Commission showing the group received $306,314 in donations to its abortion amendment campaign last month.
Most of the funding — $250,000 — came from the Tides Foundation, a left-leaning donor-advised fund in California.
Arkansans for Limited Government is pushing to place the Arkansas Abortion Amendment on the November ballot.
If passed, the measure would write abortion into the state constitution.
The Arkansas Abortion Amendment would prevent the State of Arkansas from restricting abortion during the first five months of pregnancy — which is more extreme than Roe v. Wade and would allow thousands of elective abortions on healthy women and unborn children every year.
The measure would automatically nullify all state laws that conflict with the amendment — jeopardizing basic abortion regulations like parental-consent and informed-consent requirements and paving the way for taxpayer-funded abortion in Arkansas.
The amendment does not contain any medical licensing or health and safety standards for abortion, and it does not require abortions to be performed by a physician or in a licensed medical facility.
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The measure also contains various exceptions that would permit abortion up to birth in many cases.
Last month, Arkansans for Limited Government submitted petition signatures to place the Arkansas Abortion Amendment on the ballot. Bringing the amendment up for a vote would require at least 90,704 valid signatures from registered voters.
However, Secretary of State John Thurston disqualified every petition filed to place the abortion measure on the ballot, because the sponsors failed to provide affidavits that state law requires concerning paid petition canvassers.
By law, ballot initiative sponsors must file a statement confirming that each paid canvassers was given a copy of the state’s initiative and referenda handbook as well as an explanation of relevant state laws before he or she solicited petition signatures. The sponsors backing the abortion measure failed to file this specific documentation when they submitted the petitions for the abortion amendment. That prompted the Secretary of State to reject all of the petitions.
Arkansans for Limited Government subsequently filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State Thurston. The case is currently pending before the state supreme court.
LifeNews Note: Jerry Cox is the president of the Arkansas Family Council.
