Arkansas Lawmakers Pass Near-Total Abortion Ban in Bid to Force SCOTUS Review Pro-choice activists supporting legal access to abortion protest during a demonstration outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on March 4, 2020. Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images By As part of GOP lawmakers’ ongoing efforts across the country to outlaw abortion and enable the right-wing majority U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, the Arkansas Legislature on Wednesday passed a near-total ban that the state’s ACLU chapter described as “plainly unconstitutional.” “It’s time for this decision to be overturned in the Supreme Court,” said state Rep. Mary Bentley, a Republican who sponsored the measure, which bans all abortions except to save the life of the pregnant person in a medical emergency and does not include exceptions for rape, incest, or fetal anomaly.