Arkansas abortion law bans nearly all abortions. Under the Human Life Protection Act, which took effect on June 24, 2022, no person may perform or attempt an abortion in Arkansas except to save the life of a pregnant woman in a medical emergency.1Justia. Arkansas Code 5-61-304 – Prohibition There is no exception for rape or incest. A provider who violates the ban commits an unclassified felony punishable by up to ten years in prison and a fine of up to $100,000, and the Arkansas State Medical Board must revoke the physician’s license.
What the Ban Prohibits
The statute is short and absolute. It makes it unlawful for any person to purposely perform or attempt to perform an abortion, with the single exception described below.1Justia. Arkansas Code 5-61-304 – Prohibition Gestational age does not matter. The reason for the pregnancy does not matter. In 2025, the Arkansas House rejected a proposed amendment that would have added exceptions for rape and incest, so the single life-of-the-mother exception remains the only lawful basis for terminating a pregnancy in the state.
The Life-of-the-Mother Exception
An abortion is lawful in Arkansas only when it is necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman in a medical emergency. The statute defines that emergency in physical terms: a disorder, illness, or injury that places the woman’s life in danger, including a life-threatening condition arising from the pregnancy itself.
Psychological and emotional conditions do not qualify. And the exception does not apply if an alternative treatment exists that could preserve the woman’s life without terminating the pregnancy. The physician must judge, in real time, whether a patient’s condition has crossed from serious to life-threatening, knowing that criminal charges and license revocation follow a wrong call.
Care That Is Not Considered Abortion
Several categories of pregnancy-related care fall outside the statutory definition of “abortion” and remain legal. Under Arkansas regulations, “abortion” means using or prescribing an instrument, medicine, or substance to terminate a clinically diagnosable pregnancy with knowledge that doing so will likely cause the death of the unborn child.2Code of Arkansas Rules. 17 CAR 140-3001 Definitions The definition expressly excludes:
- Procedures intended to save or preserve the health of the unborn child, or to increase the chance of a live birth.
- Removing a dead unborn child after a spontaneous miscarriage, accidental trauma, or criminal assault.
- Removing an ectopic pregnancy.
- Prescribing a drug indicated for treating a maternal illness, such as chemotherapy, even when the drug has abortion-inducing effects.3Legal Information Institute. 007.33.22 Ark Code R 012 – Rule 36 – Abortion Procedures
These carve-outs matter because miscarriage management, ectopic pregnancy treatment, and cancer treatment involving drugs with abortifacient properties are not what the ban is aimed at.
Contraception Is Not Banned
The Human Life Protection Act does not prohibit the sale, use, prescription, or administration of contraceptive drugs or devices, so long as the contraceptive is administered before pregnancy could be determined through conventional medical testing and is used according to manufacturer instructions.1Justia. Arkansas Code 5-61-304 – Prohibition Emergency contraception such as Plan B, which acts before a pregnancy is established, is outside the ban’s reach.
Rules on Abortion-Inducing Drugs
Arkansas defines “chemical abortion” as the use or dispensing of a medicine or drug to terminate a pregnancy, including off-label use of drugs like misoprostol and methotrexate when prescribed specifically to cause an abortion.2Code of Arkansas Rules. 17 CAR 140-3001 Definitions The same drug prescribed for another medical purpose does not count.
In the rare case an abortion-inducing drug is legally prescribed, the initial dose must be given in the same room and in the physical presence of the prescribing physician.4FindLaw. Arkansas Code Title 20 – 20-16-603 Telemedicine cannot be used to prescribe these drugs. The physician must also make documented, reasonable efforts to see the patient for a follow-up visit twelve to eighteen days after administration, recording the dates, times, and name of the person who made contact.
Separately, Arkansas makes it unlawful for any manufacturer, supplier, physician, or other person to provide abortion-inducing drugs by courier, delivery, or mail service.5Justia. Arkansas Code 20-16-1504 – Unlawful Distribution That state prohibition sits alongside the FDA’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy program for mifepristone, which requires certified prescribers, certified pharmacies, and a ten-week gestational limit, and which does permit mail dispensing at the federal level.6U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Information About Mifepristone for Medical Termination of Pregnancy Through Ten Weeks Gestation The conflict is unresolved, and Arkansas providers are subject to whichever regime is more restrictive.
Penalties for Providers
Violating the ban is an unclassified felony. Conviction carries a fine of up to $100,000, imprisonment of up to ten years, or both.1Justia. Arkansas Code 5-61-304 – Prohibition “Unclassified” means the offense does not fit into Arkansas’s standard felony classes A through D; its sentencing range is written directly into the statute.
Penalties fall on the person performing the abortion. The statute expressly states that it does not authorize charging or convicting a woman with any criminal offense in the death of her own unborn child, and the Arkansas State Medical Board’s rules confirm that no penalty may be assessed against the woman on whom an abortion is performed or attempted.3Legal Information Institute. 007.33.22 Ark Code R 012 – Rule 36 – Abortion Procedures
Mandatory License Revocation
Criminal prosecution is not the only consequence. Under Arkansas State Medical Board rules, the board “shall revoke” the medical license of any physician found to have performed an abortion in violation of the law.3Legal Information Institute. 007.33.22 Ark Code R 012 – Rule 36 – Abortion Procedures The language is mandatory. Revocation is not a lesser discipline option, and it comes on top of any criminal sentence.
Federal Law in 2025
Two federal frameworks that briefly offered protections for reproductive health care have been rolled back.
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act requires hospitals with emergency departments to screen and stabilize patients with medical emergencies. In 2022, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued guidance stating that EMTALA’s stabilization duty could require hospitals to provide emergency abortion care even in states with bans. That guidance was rescinded effective May 29, 2025.7Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Rescinded Reinforcement of EMTALA Obligations Specific to Patients Who Are Pregnant or Are Experiencing Pregnancy Loss
A 2024 HIPAA Privacy Rule update aimed to block providers and insurers from disclosing patient information to support investigations of lawful reproductive health care.8U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. HIPAA Privacy Rule Final Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy Fact Sheet A federal judge in the Northern District of Texas vacated that rule nationally on June 18, 2025, finding that HHS exceeded its statutory authority. As of mid-2025, no federal rule specifically shields reproductive health records from state law enforcement.
Where Act 777 Fits Now
Before Dobbs, Arkansas law required providers to test for a fetal heartbeat by abdominal ultrasound and to give the patient written notice if one was detected, under the Arkansas Human Heartbeat Protection Act enacted as Act 777 of 2013.9Justia. Arkansas Code 20-16-1303 – Testing for Heartbeat Those provisions remain on the books, but because the Human Life Protection Act bans nearly all abortions regardless of gestational age, the heartbeat testing requirement has been superseded in practice. The near-total ban is the operative law.