Arkansas judge revives lawsuit challenging state’s near-total abortion ban

The legal challenge to Arkansas’ near-total abortion ban remains alive in Pulaski County Circuit Court after a judge reversed her dismissal of the case.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Cara Connors’ decision issued Friday comes nearly a month after she dismissed the lawsuit because of a 2025 law requiring the Arkansas Court of Appeals to handle certain constitutional legal challenges.

But that ruling was issued the morning of April 30, shortly after the Arkansas Supreme Court declared the 2025 law, Act 975, unconstitutional. On Friday, Connors agreed with the plaintiffs that the Supreme Court’s ruling meant the circuit court can continue handling the case.

Act 975’s passage followed several high-profile instances of judges in Pulaski County striking down laws passed by the majority-Republican state Legislature.

Arkansas has banned abortion, with a narrow exception to save a pregnant person’s life, since June 2022 under a law that took effect when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Six women and an obstetrician-gynecologist asked the circuit court to declare the law unconstitutional and temporarily block its enforcement.

Five of the six women traveled to Kansas or Illinois to obtain legal abortions. Three had nonviable pregnancies, one had been sexually assaulted and one did not want children, according to the amended complaint filed in April. The sixth woman continued her pregnancy for seven weeks after learning it was nonviable because doctors denied her an abortion.

Arkansas law makes it a felony punishable by a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, a maximum fine of $100,000 or both for a medical professional who performs an abortion.

The plaintiffs are represented by Amplify Legal, the litigation arm of Abortion in America. Abortion in America is an abortion-rights advocacy group co-founded by former Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, who died last year.

Arkansas has among the nation’s strictest abortion bans, and the challenge against it is the first Amplify Legal has filed. The case has brought national attention to the fact that the law puts decisions about health care for miscarriages in the hands of lawyers rather than doctors.

“We are glad that we can now expeditiously move toward a hearing on our request to block the abortion bans while this lawsuit continues,” Amplify Legal said in a Tuesday statement. “Our clients will testify to their horrific experiences under the abortion bans, and we look forward to demonstrating why the state’s remaining jurisdictional arguments are without merit.”

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin’s office “will continue to vigorously defend the state’s duly passed abortion laws,” spokesperson Jeff LeMaster said Tuesday.