CNN’s Bash Confronts AR Governor on Trigger Law Forbidding Abortions Even in Cases of Incest, Rape: ‘You Did Sign the Law’
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson says he believes women should be allowed to have an abortion in cases of rape and incest, but he was grilled for signing a law that would ban abortions in his state with no exceptions for those circumstances.
CNN’s Dana Bash interviewed Hutchinson Sunday, and asked about a bill he signed into state law back in 2019 that would hugely restrict abortion access if Roe v. Wade was ever overturned. Arkansas is one of several states with these “trigger laws” in place, and the rollback of federal abortion rights protections continues to be a major public topic with the Supreme Court’s possible overturn of Roe.
As Hutchinson spoke of how the law he signed would come into effect, he said that “whenever I signed that law, I did express that I support…the exceptions of rape and incest. The life of the mother and rape and incest are two exceptions I believe should have been added that did not have the support in the general assembly.” Hutchinson continued to speak of how Roe’s overturn would put the issue of abortion back in the hands of individual states, but Bash pointed out “Governor, you did sign the law that does not include any exceptions for rape and incest.”
“I know you said that you would rather that that not be part of the law, but it is, and you signed it,” Bash continued. “I want to discuss the real world implications of this. For example: why should an 11 or 12-year-old girl who’s impregnated by her father or uncle or another family member be forced to carry that child to term?”
Hutchinson answered by saying he recognizes the life of the unborn, though he acknowledged rape and incest as “very appropriate” exceptions. He expressed hope that those 2 exceptions might be revisited in future conversations within the state, but Bash asked him “what if it can’t be?”
“You wanted the legislature in Arkansas to put those exceptions in. They didn’t. Your term is almost up,” she said. “What makes you think you can change it?”
Watch above, via CNN.
