Providers Try to Halt Arkansas Ending Abortions During Pandemic

Arkansas abortion providers are fighting back in federal court against the state’s push to ban surgical abortions under an executive order declaring an emergency over the coronovirus.

Little Rock Family Planning Services and physician Thomas Tvedten Monday asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas for permission to supplement a complaint challenging three state laws restricting abortion. The court already has preliminarily blocked the state from enforcing those laws, which, among other things, would bar abortions for women pregnant longer than 18 weeks.

The additional counts would add claims to stop the state’s enforcement of an Arkansas Department of Health directive interpreting the executive order as barring all surgical abortions “except where immediately necessary to protect the life or health of the patient.”

The providers filed a concurrent emergency motion to block the directive.

The Arkansas officials are “exploiting the pandemic to achieve their longtime goal of severely restricting––if not eliminating entirely—access to abortion care” in the state, the providers said in their motion. Thus, “women seeking abortions in Arkansas face an ‘imminent threat to their constitutional rights,’” they said.

Governor Asa Hutchinson’s (R) emergency order requires Arkansas residents to practice social distancing and requests health-care providers to postpone unnecessary medical procedures. Hutchinson hasn’t issued stay-at-home orders or ordered businesses to close to stop the virus’s spread, the proposed supplemental complaint said.

LRFP has taken steps to protect its patients and staff from Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, the complaint said. These include enhancing telephone interviews with patients and limiting the number of patients in the waiting room, it said. The provider said it has no intention of using any state-provided personal protective equipment, hospital resources, or hospital personnel needed to fight the virus.

But the health department April 10 served LRFP with a cease-and-desist order, demanding it stop providing “all procedures that are not immediately medically necessary,” the complaint said.

The state’s actions place significant burdens on women seeking abortions in Arkansas without providing any benefits, the providers said. They asked the court to declare that the ban violates constitutional due process and equal protection guarantees.

Providers are fighting similar Covid-19 related attempts to ban abortions in Alabama, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Texas.

The providers are represented by O’Melveny & Myers LLP, Bettina E. Brownstein Law Firm, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Mann & Kemp PLLC.

The case is Little Rock Family Planning Servs. v. Rutledge, E.D. Ark., No. 19-cv-449, brief in support of motion 4/13/20