Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders last week signed the “Monument to Unborn Children Display Act” into law. This allows for the construction of a monument at the State Capitol grounds to honor babies who were aborted during Roe v. Wade.

The bill creates a private fund for financing the monument and directs that the Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission oversee its design. It also mandates that the secretary of the state has final say over placement and design.

This legislation is also known as Senate Bill 307. It argues that Arkansas was prevented from protecting unborn children’s lives by the Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision. The Supreme Court declared a constitutional right for abortion. According to the bill, Arkansas saw 236,243 elective abortions from 1973 to 2022. The bill aims to remember the lives that were lost and to remind us of our responsibility to protect every human life.

Breitbart reports that Arkansas state Rep. Mary Bentley was one of the bill’s sponsors. She said the legislation would allow the state of Arkansas to raise private money for a memorial to “remember the children we weren’t able to protect and will not forget”. However, Holly Dickson (executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas) condemned the bill as “performative politics stunt.”

Arkansas now bans abortion except for the protection of the mother’s health. The House passed the bill previously with 60-19 votes. Although the legislation doesn’t specify where the monument will be located, the Capitol grounds already contain “several other monuments”, including one that honors the nine Black students who deegregated Little Rock Central High School and a Ten Commandments monument that was placed in 2018. According to the Associated Press