Supreme Court denies hearing for Arkansas 12-week abortion ban

The U.S. Supreme Court has chosen not to hear the case of Arkansas’s law prohibiting abortion after 12 weeks.

In October, Live Action News reported that the the state was petitioning the high court to review the law, which is based on the ability to detect a fetal heartbeat, on the basis that Roe v. Wade’s post-viability cutoff point for abortion restrictions was made obsolete by subsequent scientific developments. Basing abortions’ permissibly on fetal heartbeats, they argued, was “fairer, more reasonable, and more humane.”

However, the Supreme Court’s move not to hear the case essentially kills the 2013 law, leaving a federal appeals court decision ruling it unconstitutional the final word on the matter. The lower court called it a violation of the Supreme Court’s 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey ruling, which reaffirmed the viability standard.

The Supreme Court will, however, take up the case of Texas’s abortion regulations, which do not directly prohibit abortions but are expected to close many abortion clinics in the state who are unwilling to meet the new requirements that abortionists have area hospital admitting privileges and that clinics meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers.