Earlier this year, Arkansas Republicans overrode their governor to enact one of the harshest abortion restrictions in the nation, a 12-week ban that would criminalize one out of every 10 abortions in the state. But reproductive rights advocates are fighting back, taking the state to court and ultimately winning an injunction that will prevent the harsh law from going into effect.

The Center for Reproductive Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the ACLU of Arkansas all joined forces to file a lawsuit against the extreme abortion ban, which oversteps Roe v. Wade‘s constitutional right to legal abortion services until about 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy. On Friday afternoon, a federal judge ruled that the 12-week ban — which was set to take effect in August — cannot be enforced while that legal challenge is still pending.

Nancy Northrup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, praised U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright’s decision to grant the injunction against the law. “Today’s decision ensures that the women of Arkansas will remain protected from this blatant unconstitutional assault on their health and fundamental reproductive rights,” Northrup said in a statement. “Such an extreme ban on abortion would have immediate and devastating consequences for women in Arkansas, especially those who could not afford to travel out of state to access reproductive health care.”

Wright’s decision to block the 12-week ban comes just days after her decision to dismiss Arkansas’ request to drop the lawsuit. Wright sided against the state on Wednesday, ruling that the reproductive rights groups may continue with their legal challenge.

Arkansas’ stringent abortion ban is topped only by a new law in North Dakota, which would cut off legal access to abortion services after just six weeks — before many women even realize they’re pregnant. Both laws are “heartbeat” measures, which seek to criminalize abortion after the fetus’ heartbeat can first be detected — a random cut-off that isn’t based in any scientific definition of viability.

The states home to the United States’ harshest abortion restrictions, North Dakota and Arkansas, are both facing legal challenges over their new laws — and in both states, those battles have begun to advance this week.

In North Dakota, reproductive rights activists filed a lawsuit on Wednesday to challenge a measure that threatens to shut down the last remaining abortion clinic in the state. And in Arkansas, a district judge sided with abortion providers on Wednesday, denying the state’s request to drop the lawsuit against its new 12-week abortion ban and allowing the doctors’ challenge against it to continue.

The Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York-based group that assists with litigation to defend women’s right to legal abortion, is also preparing to file suit against several other new anti-choice laws in North Dakota — including a measure that criminalizes abortions after just six weeks of pregnancy. Taken together, all of the new restrictions that North Dakota enacted this session would make it more difficult for women to terminate their pregnancies there than anywhere else in the country.

“‘With their relentless campaign to end safe and legal abortion in North Dakota, lawmakers have effectively told the women of their state, ‘We don’t care about your health, we don’t care about your safety, and we sure don’t care about your constitutional and human rights,’ ” the group’s president, Nancy Northrup, said in a statement this week. “Our message back to politicians hostile to reproductive rights in North Dakota and nationwide is crystal clear: We are going to fight back relentlessly against your attacks on the women of your state.”

When anti-choice lawmakers in North Dakota and Arkansas enacted the new abortion bans earlier this year, they were fully aware that those laws would spark court battles. In fact, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple (R) even admitted that he decided to sign an unconstitutional six-week abortion ban exactly because he wanted to entangle his state in a legal fight that could “discover the boundaries of Roe v. Wade.” This session, Republican lawmakers — who used to prefer to indirectly undermine women’s reproductive rights — are now favoring more direct attacks that they hope could eventually land the abortion issue back in the Supreme Court.

Of course, those fights don’t come without a cost. North Dakota’s attorney general has already requested an addition $400,000 dollars to defend its abortion bans in court. If abortion-related lawsuits drag on over several years, as they have in Kansas, costs can top $1 million dollars.

Republicans in Benton County, Arkansas are not happy that their state legislators have agreed to expand Medicaid under Obamacare. In this month’s newsletter, columnist Chris Nogy encouraged his fellow Republicans to utilize their 2nd Amendment rights to make sure that lawmakers — particularly Republicans who vote with Democrats — are held accountable:

So what do we do?  While I believe that we as a party are done in Arkansas after this, if there is ANY hope of our survival, it is going to take not being forgiving.  Not only for past actions, but to show those who will come in the future that the cost of failure to do the thing they were elected to do will be significant.  We need to be making a point of this failure from this moment on.  We need to make a public statement from our groups that we no longer support those who turned on us, that we will NOT be working to their re-election, that we will be actively seeking replacements, and perhaps even working towards recall.  We as the Party have to stand up and say ‘no more – you were given a job, you campaigned on the promise to do this job, you had the ability to do this job, you had the votes each time to do this job, and yet for no legitimate reason you betrayed the trust put in you by the electorate and you are now completely and permanently politically finished.’

We need to let those who will come in the future to represent us that we are serious.  The 2nd amendment means nothing unless those in power believe you would have no problem simply walking up and shooting them if they got too far out of line and stopped responding as representatives.  It seems that we are unable to muster that belief in any of our representatives on a state or federal level, but we have to have something, something costly, something that they will fear that we will use if they step out of line.  If we can’t shoot them, we have to at least be firm in our threat to take immediate action against them politically, socially, and civically if they screw up on something this big.  Personally, I think a gun is quicker and more merciful, but hey, we can’t.

Nogy’s wife is the group’s secretary, and apparently she included his “scathing” essay without permission. Tim Summers, chair of the Benton County Republicans, issued a statement clarifying that “the letter was not approved and Mr. Nogy had no authority to submit through the newsletter.” State Sen. Jim Woods (R) said he was “embarrassed” for the Benton County Republicans, and state Rep. Micah Neal (R) called the column “scary,” adding, “I don’t appreciate it.”

Such heated rhetoric from the Arkansas GOP is not new. Last week, state Rep. Neal Bell (R) tweeted that he bet the “cowering liberals” in Boston were “wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine.” Arkansas House Speaker Davy Carter (R) issued a public apology to Boston on behalf of Bell’s insensitive remark, and Bell ultimately offered his own apology.

Arkansas came one step closer to expanding Medicaid under Obamacare on Thursday after the state senate advanced a modified expansion bill by a 27-8 vote. The bill now heads to Gov. Mike Beebe (D), who is expected to sign it promptly.

In March, Beebe and the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) struck a first-of-its-kind deal that would allow Arkansas to expand Medicaid while also privatizing the state-federal partnership program. Under the tentative deal, the federal government will subsidize the entire cost of Arkansas’ Medicaid expansion, but allow the state to use that federal money to buy poor people private insurance, rather than expand the existing public program. The compromise — which has been dubbed “the private option” — was appealing to both Beebe and the Obama Administration, since conservative Arkansas legislators are skeptical of public entitlements, but the state has a high number of poor and uninsured residents who will benefit from expanded access to health coverage.

The development is particularly significant since the private option could serve as a template for Republican-controlled states. Conservatives who are adamantly opposed to public health entitlements like Medicaid are being fiercely lobbied by hospital associations and advocates for the poor, who are warning them that safety net hospitals and state budgets could buckle under the weight of uncompensated medical care costs barring expanded insurance access for the poor. The private option could allow Republicans to heed those warnings without endorsing a program they have historically slammed.

Now that Arkansas has all but approved the deal, all eyes will be on Republican state leaders like Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. Both are strong Obamacare critics and have rejected expanding Medicaid — despite their past endorsement of putting more people into the program while privatizing it. Considering those states’ massive uninsurance and poverty rates, the potential presidential contenders might feel a little more pressure to accept an Arkansas-style deal as it moves closer to becoming a reality.

Abortion opponents in Arkansas are currently focused on targeting Planned Parenthood, apparently unconcerned about the fact that their crusade could actually have much broader consequences in areas unrelated to abortion care. On Tuesday, the state Senate voted to strip funding from the women’s health organization, advancing a measure that would effectively kill a comprehensive sex education program that Planned Parenthood currently provides for Arkansas’ public high school students.

Opponents of the measure point out that rather than eliminating abortion services, Republicans are actually targeting state grants that are awarded to Planned Parenthood specifically to fund its sexual health programming. “They’re worried about a few thousand dollars for a group trying to teach young people in this school district in Little Rock about HIV/AIDS and how to prevent it. And it’s just wrong,” one constituent, Eric Camp, pointed out during Tuesday’s debate.

Darrell Seward, a health teacher at one of Little Rock’s public high schools, told the Huffington Post that eliminating the sex ed program would have negative consequences for his students. Seward issued a challenge to state lawmakers to attend one of the classes, learn more about the curriculum, and see whether they continue to object so strongly to it:

Planned Parenthood does not receive any family planning money from the state, but the bill will end a state-funded HIV and STI prevention program that Planned Parenthood administers in Arkansas public high schools. Darrell Seward, the assistant football coach and health education teacher at Little Rock Central High School, said the program is invaluable to his students.

“I would challenge any legislator or politician in the state of Arkansas or higher to set foot in my classroom and listen to the curriculum and walk out and say it’s a bad program,” he told The Huffington Post in a phone interview. “This program has been one of the most well-received programs that our students have ever been engaged in. I am a Republican, but this is one issue I feel very strongly about, because I see the benefit for our kids.” [...]

“My question would be, if it’s not Planned Parenthood, why not?” he said. “Why shouldn’t they deliver this content? I just really cannot understand why any politician would do what they’re doing with this program when they’ve never actually seen it in play.”

Arkansas has some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and HIV infection in the nation. State law does not currently require the public schools in Arkansas to provide sex ed courses that adhere to any kind of standards for medical accuracy.

So far this year, Arkansas’ anti-abortion state lawmakers have been singularly focused on restricting access to reproductive care. The state has already passed some of the most stringent abortion laws in the country, including an unconstitutional 12-week ban that likely faces an imminent court challenge. Planned Parenthood officials point out that if the GOP-controlled legislature is concerned about effective methods to lower the abortion rate, they might want to reconsider attacking one of the few sexual health resources available to young people in the state. Nevertheless, that logic hasn’t dissuaded abortion opponents from pursuing similar initiatives in North Dakota and Texas.

So far this session, Arkansas Republicans have already pushed through some of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country. But state lawmakers aren’t finished with their attacks on reproductive rights. Now, the Arkansas legislature is attempting to strip funding from Planned Parenthood — and, intent on attacking the women’s health organization, Republicans are advancing a measure that could also have much broader consequences in the state.

The move to cut off public funding to Planned Parenthood would prevent the organization from continuing to provide sex education and STD prevention resources in Little Rock-area schools. And, since it would also target any organization that might refer women to Planned Parenthood for their reproductive care, it could also jeopardize the money that helps fund domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers in the state:

But Planned Parenthood officials warned that the measure would have unintended consequences by cutting off money to any person or entity referring a woman to an abortion provider. The proposal could end research grants to doctors or stop funding to domestic violence shelters if they refer women to abortion providers, the group warned.

The group noted that the bill also would bar the state from awarding grants to “affiliates” of abortion providers, a move that could affect anyone who contracts with Planned Parenthood or entities that provide abortion referrals.

“The Arkansas Legislature is once again putting politics ahead of the health and well-being of Arkansans,” Planned Parenthood of the Heartland President and CEO Jill June said in a statement released by the group. “Planned Parenthood is being singled out for political reasons, and the health of families in our state is being jeopardized along the way.”

The Republican party has had a complicated history with effectively addressing issues of domestic abuse and sexual assault. Last year’s election season came to be defined by GOP candidates making offensive comments about rape, and whether or not anti-choice Republicans would be willing to ensure abortion access for rape victims has become a particularly contentious debate. The GOP caucus has actually received multiple PR trainings to help lawmakers better talk about rape, but that hasn’t stopped Republicans from advancing policies — like this effort to defund Planned Parenthood — that actually undermine initiatives to address sexual violence.

Unfortunately, Arkansas Republicans aren’t the only lawmakers who are so focused on targeting Planned Parenthood that they end up threatening other areas of women’s health and safety. Across the country, GOP attacks on the women’s health organization are leading to fewer sexual education programs, fewer preventative resources like contraception and family planning counseling, and fewer publicly-funded health clinics. And in Arizona, Republicans pushing to defund Planned Parenthood may actually end up jeopardizing the entire state’s Medicaid expansion to extend health coverage to additional low-income people.