Getty Arkansas to U.S. Supreme Court: Overturn Roe v. Wade The state is asking the justices to approve a law banning abortion after 12 weeks.

Arkansas has asked the Supreme Court to revisit its long-standing ruling that a woman can terminate a pregnancy until the fetus is viable outside of the womb.

Arkansas on Tuesday asked the justices to overturn a lower court decision that found that the state’s ban on abortion at 12 weeks of pregnancy and when a heartbeat is detected is unconstitutional.


The court established the viability standard in the 1973 case Roe v. Wade and reaffirmed it in the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Arkansas argues that the viability rule is arbitrary, not written in the constitution, and is outdated.

Today, medical experts place viability at about 23 weeks.

“This case is an ideal vehicle for the Court to reevaluate the viability rule imposed in Roe and Casey and adopt a new standard governing the constitutionality of abortion regulations,” the state’s lawyers wrote in a petition filed on Tuesday.

It’s far from certain that the justices will hear the case. In the last term, they refused to hear a challenge over a 20-week abortion ban that a lower court had overturned.

If they don’t take the Arkansas case, a lower court decision blocking the law would remain in place.

The ACLU and the Center for Reproductive Rights challenged the Arkansas law on behalf of two Arkansas doctors and their patients. They argue that the constitutionality of abortion rights is clear and should not be overturned

The state's law, "denies plaintiffs patients their constitutionally-guaranteed right to decide to end a previability pregnancy," they wrote in their complaint.

This term, the court is widely expected to take a separate abortion case on the constitutionality of a Texas law that imposed new restrictions on abortion providers and clinics in the state. The justices would have to decide whether the rules impose a undue burden on access to an abortion.