Handmaiden's Tale in Arkansas

The Supreme Court has allowed Arkansas' draconian abortion restrictions to stand:

The Supreme Court refused on Tuesday to hear a challenge to an Arkansas law that could force two of the state’s three abortion clinics to close.

As is their custom, the justices gave no reasons for turning away the appeal. The case will continue to be litigated in the lower courts.

The law concerns medication abortions, which use pills to induce abortions in the first nine weeks of pregnancy. The law, enacted in 2015, requires providers of the procedure to have contracts with doctors who have admitting privileges at a hospital in the state. Abortion clinics in Arkansas said they were unable to find any doctors willing to sign such contracts.

After the Supreme Court’s action, Planned Parenthood said it would for now stop providing medication abortions in the state.

We are going to see Roe v. Wade overturned in the next few years.