Then-Arkansas Gov.-elect Sarah Huckabee Sanders is pictured at a Republican Governors Association conference in November 2022 in Orlando, Fla. Sanders has signed a new law that will allow a pro-life monument to be built near the state Capitol. Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has signed a bill which will build a memorial near the state Capitol to memorialize the millions of babies killed in abortions. Arkansas now has a law in place banning abortions but the governor wants to remember those lives lost before Roe was overturned last year. The privately funded “monument to the unborn” will require the Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission to select the artist and the design of the monument. The law also sets up a “Monument to Unborn Children Display Fund” to raise money “for the purpose of erecting and maintaining a suitable monument on the State Capitol grounds commemorating unborn children aborted during the era of Roe v. Wade.”

According to local Arkansas News:

Republican Rep. Mary Bentley, the bill’s House sponsor, said the legislation would allow the state to raise private money for a memorial to “remember those children we were not able to protect and we will not be able to forget.”

A law Arkansas approved in 2019 banning nearly all abortions took effect last year when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the 1973 Roe decision. Arkansas’ ban only allows abortions to save the life of the mother in a medical emergency.

The legislation doesn’t specify where the monument would go on the Capitol grounds, which includes several other monuments, including one honoring the nine Black students who desegregated Little Rock Central High School. The Capitol grounds also include a Ten Commandments monument that was installed in 2018.

The law says that the structure will serve “as a memorial memorial to the lives lost from 1973 to 2022 due to the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, and as a constant reminder of our duty to protect the life of every innocent human person, no matter how young or old, or how helpless and vulnerable that person may be.”

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Norman Sousa
Norman Sousa
1 year ago

The unborn includes the thousands of miscarriages, still born and other tragic natural pregnancy terminations. All should be equally acknowledged and honored by the memorial