Supreme Court allows restrictive Arkansas abortion law to go into effect

Impact

The Supreme Court has declined to hear a challenge to a restrictive Arkansas law that would effectively ban medication-induced abortions, CNN reported Tuesday.

The law requires that providers of medication-induced abortions, which only take place in the first nine weeks of pregnancy, must contract with a doctor who has admitting privileges at a hospital in the state. Few doctors are willing to enter into those contracts for fear of being ostracized in their communities, Planned Parenthood told the New York Times.

The law could essentially leave Arkansas with just one abortion clinic, which would only be able to provide surgical abortions, according to the Washington Post.

An appeals court had previously upheld the law, originally passed in 2015. And now that the Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the measure, it could go into effect in mid-July, CNN reported.

The court’s decision not to hear the case, however, doesn’t mean the law is constitutional.

Planned Parenthood, the petitioners in the case, could still ask the court to strike down the law, but “may have to prove how many women could be affected by it” in order to do so, according to the Post.