Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) sidestepped a question as to whether he had exceptions in the state’s abortion laws, caused by the overthrow of Roe v. Wade, will make for cases involving rape or incest.
When NBC’s “Meet The Press” host Chuck Todd asked Hutchinson if he believed it was a mistake not to include exceptions in the abortion laws for those specific cases, the governor avoided answering the question directly and claimed that the Supreme Court’s decision “was really something that would save lives.”
“In Arkansas, we immediately followed the direction of the law,” Hutchinson told Todd about the trigger law, which went into effect after Friday’s Supreme Court ruling.
“It caused the ban on abortion, except as you [Todd] said, in the case of the life of the mother, ”the governor explained.
Todd again pushed Hutchinson further over the matter, asking if the governor would be comfortable if a theoretical 13-year-old, who was raped by a family member, could not get an abortion in Arkansas.
The governor responded by indicating that he would not be comfortable with it.
“I am not – I would have preferred a different outcome than this,” Hutchinson replied. “But that is not the debate today in Arkansas. It may be in the future. ”
Hutchinson’s remarks on Sunday contradicted remarks he made during an interview with THV11 news station in Little Rock.
When Hutchinson asked a similar question about rape and incest earlier this weekend by Arkansas-based journalist Sarah Horbacewicz, Hutchinson said he did not expect to make exceptions to the state’s abortion ban again.
“The legislative will was clear,” he said in that Friday interview. “I do not expect it to be reviewed in the short term, if at all, because they have expressed the will of the people of Arkansas that they want to protect the lives of the unborn.”
As the state’s abortion ban is now, the only exception Arkansas will make is when the mother’s life is in danger.
Arkansas is one of 13 states, including Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Utah, all of which have introduced trigger laws after Roe v. Wade overthrown, according to pro-life research organization Guttmacher Institute.
