Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and UAR FM 89.

And hello again everyone and thanks very much for being with us as more than one observer put it, there simply was not another story.

This week.

A draft opinion leaked from the US Supreme Court, reversing 1/2 century precedent that guaranteed a right to abortion.

Now that decision, if formally adopted by the Court, would essentially end abortion in Arkansas.

Ours is among more than a dozen states with a so-called trigger law, which makes the abortion ban effective upon the reversal of the US Supreme Court's road decision interviewed earlier this week on the PBS NewsHour.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, we put a law in place in 2019 that we are essentially calling a trigger law which will go into effect in the event that the Court does, in fact.

Overturn Roe V. Wade and the Casey decision the trigger law essentially says that an Arkansas as the Attorney general for the state I will certify that that is what the Supreme Court of the United States has done is overturned.

Roe V, Wade and Casey, which would allow us to have a total ban on abortions.

In effect a total ban, except to save the life of a mother in a medical emergency.

And here with us now to consider the reversal, the reversal of Roe, the likely reversal of Roe, and the subsequent Casey ruling which.

Tinkered with Roe for a little bit.

Jerry Cox, president of the Family Council of Arkansas and Karen Ricketts, president of the Arkansas Coalition for Reproductive Justice.

Thank you both for coming in.

Thank you Mr Cox, let me begin with you because, as they would say, perhaps having you being on the prevailing side.

Is there any doubt in your mind that abortion and Arkansas is effectively a pending?

Of course, formal adoption by the court is at an end.

I agree, provided that.

This ruling or this report stands.

We don't know for sure.

We'll know probably between now and the end of June, but if it stands as written then I agree with the Attorney general that our existing prohibitions on abortion would be enforceable.

Therefore abortion would be illegal in Arkansas except for the purpose of saving the life of the mother.

All right.

Miss Ricketts.

Yes, this is true.

Currently abortion is still legal in Arkansas, but if this draft were to be the final say from the Supreme Court.

Abortion in Arkansas would no longer be available and there would be no exceptions for rape or incest, and Mr Cox is correct that it would be available for in cases of endangerment to the life of the mother.

However, physicians are having a hard time deciding when is the right time to proceed with an abortion for that patient because there is a risk in them losing their.

Lysons there there are in fact civil and criminal penalties penalties.

Mr Cox that are applicable to physicians who.

Violate the statute and it has been criticized for its vagueness for its supposed vagueness.

Well, in it's Steve, it's also important to point out that the trigger law is not the only abortion law in Arkansas that would be enforceable if Roe is reversed, for example.

In 2021, the Arkansas Legislature passed another law that's not a trigger law.

It just simply says that abortion is illegal in Arkansas except to save the life of the mother.

Now that law is has been enjoined in federal court.

But there's an argument to be made that if Roe goes away, if Casey is, it goes away.

They're moot that, yeah, that those those laws would be enforceable then at that point.

Not only that.

But there's also a question about pre Roe legislation that prohibited abortions before Roe was ever instituted.

Those laws were never appealed, repealed, and so it's it's.

There's lots of debate out there about how many moving parts there will be, but all of those moving parts point toward abortion, being essentially illegal in Arkansas.

If Roe and Casey.

Go away if Roe is or if the Court's decision is sustained, correct?

What legislation do you anticipate next in Arkansas?

Well, I think nobody can answer that right now.

I certainly am not qualified to answer it.

Arkansas has among the the strongest abortion laws in the country.

In fact, does more than a dozen.

I think.

Yeah, I mean it.

In fact, the legislature has passed 44 what we consider pro-life bills.

In the last 10 years, now, many of these are regulating clinics and you know, many of these are in effect even right now.

But the and have been sustained and absolutely but point is, these other laws would be enforceable, and we'll have to wait and see.

I think the legislature will pass whatever is necessary to advance the pro-life cause here in Arkansas, and they've already made it very clear in fact, polling.

The University of Arkansas indicates that 79% of the people in Arkansas support either an outright ban on abortion or regulation of it.

Now if Roe were to be the law of the land.

Roe really opened it up where there were very little regulations on abortion because it wasn't until 1992 with the Casey decision that you saw abortion being reigned in, but prior to that, for about 20 years, it was kind of the Wild West with abortion.

And so there are some people that want to take us back to that.

We're not one of them, Miss Riggins.

There would appear to be very little that the Pro choice forces anyway could could muster in terms of legislation should.

The Court should Justice Alito's finding be sustained, for sure, but I do want to take a moment and circle back to your question about criminalization laws.

You're already seeing that in the United States in Oklahoma last year, there was a young woman who, after suffering a traumatic pregnancy loss, she was imprisoned during the pandemic for a year and a half and charged with manslaughter over something that was out of her control.

Based with no basis of law or science.

So this is something we're already seeing.

And as far as the history of the anti abortion movement, this is something that is not new.

This is something we've been seeing building up for several decades in the 1850s.

That's when I think you referenced to earlier.

That was the beginning of the movement wasn't necessarily politicized at that time, but physicians wanted to kind of have more control over when an abortion could take place, and taking it out of the hands.

Of the midwives and healers at that time, and then over the next several decades we see.

The late 60s seventies build up of states wanting to.

Lower.

Restrictions on the already restricted abortion bans at that time and when Roe was passed in 73 and 76 about three years later, that's when you see more of the.

Evangelical.

Movement to have this as a platform.

Abortion rights and elections.

Yeah, the assent of the religious right to put it in shorthand anyway.

Are you concerned about further legislative initiatives by social conservatives?

I'm more I'm concerned that with the argument that taking this out of the federal and Supreme Court's hands into states rights we've seen over the past decades, those in power, those the party of small government wishes to or already uses methods such as gerrymandering, redlining, voter suppression laws to maintain that power, and so it would be very difficult to win elections to have legislators who would.

Pass and keep laws where abortion is accessible to everyone, and this isn't just a women's issue either, I'd like to clarify that this is abortion care is needed for transmen.

For nonbinary people, and it won't just stop here.

I think the biggest concern leading past this is what's next.

If it's abortion care, which is health care, what's going to be next?

Access to birth control, same sex, and interracial marriages?

So those are my concerns at the moment.

Well, I want to come back to that in just a moment.

Jerry Cox let me do that.

You you know there is no exception for rape or incest in the Arkansas statutes that has been the hang up for a lot of people who might consider themselves moderates on the on the abortion issue.

Why not an exception for rape?

Incest, this is.

This is a matter of people being better informed about the issue because if you stop and think.

We don't punish children for the crimes of their fathers.

We just don't do that anywhere in our society.

And yet that's what it's.

It's the equivalent of if you put an unborn child to death because of the circumstances under which it was conceived.

Are you punishing a woman, though?

Let me let me finish with that for the crimes of her aggressor.

The assailant rape is awful.

Incest is terrible.

We have laws that that need to deal with those people, and I wish I could undo.

I could only imagine the hurt that that imposes on a woman to be a victim of rape or incest.

And I I would never, ever minimize that and I I couldn't even understand what that's like, but we operate from the position that the unborn child.

Is a distinct person has its own blood type, its own separate DNA?

It has it's six weeks.

It has a heartbeat.

It has brain waves.

We can see into the womb now back when Roe was was instituted.

Steve, I was in college at the time.

I remember what it was like where people said oh it unborn child.

It's just a blob in the belly.

It's like a tumor.

There's nothing really to it.

But then we began to have ultrasound and now everybody shows a picture of their unborn child.

You see, it's a little face we can do surgeries on unborn children and so the idea of putting that person.

To death.

Because of how it was conceived.

It's not the solution, it's a terrible situation, but there's a better way, and that's what we really need to educate people on, and I think the legislature gets it because they passed that law.

Let me get them as Ricketts on that.

For exemption for there not to be exemptions for rape or incest, it makes me wonder who these laws are actually protecting.

Is it the pregnant person or is it the the ******?

And so with that, the Mississippi case, if you're not aware, the one that's going against or up in front of the Supreme Court would ban abortions past 15 weeks.

And there are instances where fetal anomalies happen.

And a family may be faced with a decision to abort a fetus if something were to happen, and it would be a wanted pregnancy and that just adds more complications to already traumatic and touchy subject, right?

And then the other thing is.

Without rape, exemptions for rape or incest, it's implying a forced birth.

Which.

Again.

Has its own traumas of living with experience and then also.

It's it's a complicated, it's it's.

It's a touchy subject because these are very private matters that should be within that person's family or with their physician.

And with abortion care.

Gather it if you want to, but let me let me go to Mr sure sure well, let me go to Mr. Cox with a point that you have raised and that many others have raised Mr. Cox and that is in in Justice Alito's writing.

He dismissed the 14th Amendment argument by saying there is no.

Constitution is as Mr. Scalia with Justice Scalia would say, simply silent on the matter of a quote right to privacy, and from that right to privacy argument stems as Miss Ricketts noted same sex marriage, even contraception, do you see?

Social conservatives moving in that direction.

That's is that a legitimate fear.

It's not a legitimate fear.

I realize it's a fear on the part of some people, but it's not legitimate because, you know, I've reviewed the ruling, the document, it.

It just doesn't mention any of those things even remotely.

This is a ruling or talking about abortion.

I here's what I found interesting when I was going through this.

The this document says that the Supreme Court has brought a minute remaining.

One Supreme Court has tried for 50 years to settle the issue of abortion and has been unable to do so.

So what they said is we're going to send this back to the States and let you guys work this out because we can't solve it.

And the fact that the two of us are here on totally opposite sides of the issue is just a microcosm of the debate that's going on around the country and the court said.

We've issued ruling after ruling and it hasn't settled it.

We're going to send it back to the States and let the elected officials work this out to me.

That's the fair way to do it.

I'll give him his Ricketts the last word for sure.

I don't think it is a.

Let's just I don't trust that the legislation legislators would do the right thing, and ensuring everyone's access.

You don't have a choice really.

When it gets down to it.

It's true, true, especially when there are methods like gerrymandering and redlining and voter suppression laws that keep people in power and to go back earlier.

When Mr. Cox is talking about education.

How is it pro-life when we don't have comprehensive age appropriate?

Sex education and education on different types of birth control and contraception.

So I think if we are gonna look at this in a pro-life stance, we would need to also tie in the education part of preventing abortion.

So I got to end it there because we're simply out of time.

Please come back soon and we'll continue the conversation.

If you will miss Ricketts.

Mr Cox.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you.

Thank you and we'll be right back.

And we are back.

If you've been to anywhere outside in Arkansas the past couple of days, you've got wet rain, a lot of it, and not just this week.

But since the turn of the year, and certainly since the arrival of spring, April showers may bring may flowers, but that rain is having a negative impact on row crops, especially at ironically, a crop that requires a lot of water.

It's a crop that customarily brings 10s of millions of dollars to the state, but at this moment its prospects are literally underwater with us now to discuss the situation.

Doctor Jared Hardtke of the UA's Agriculture Division welcome back Doctor What Menace Wet out there.

Yes, it's been an extremely wet spring, so we're we're tracking along the lines of some of our slowest rice planting progress in a very long time.

We were.

We were fortunate to week before last.

To have a nice little jump in in our planning progress, but really put us in line, I'm sure better Members 2019 and 2020 being being extremely wet years as well and and that really puts us right along the lines of the slowest progress in in 30 years.

Yeah, I hope I didn't sound flip on and bringing them on board because we're talking literally here about millions of dollars 10s of $1,000,000 in in receipts.

Yes, I absolutely are in jeopardy that that's that's correct.

And I mean you make an excellent point.

Rice is something that.

Know anyone with any familiarity we we do grow with a lot of water, typically in a flooded environment, but it has to be tough for us to get it planted in the 1st place, and that's really giving us an extreme amount of difficulty this year.

Again, as you mentioned, more rain experience this week.

We're very hopeful for for the upcoming forecast of next week that it may finally turn.

You know, drier and give us an opportunity, but it is getting to that point in the calendar year where growers have to make decisions on whether it continues to be a profitable.

Decision this late in the year to continue.

How much rice to continue planting?

What's what's the cutoff point?

Well, depending on the year, unfortunately is where it gets even more difficult.

So the the general topic.

I know everybody's paying more for everything these days and and growers are no different in terms of planning though.

Yeah, we'll come to that.

Yes, yes, really.

The the impact of of fertilizer and fuel prices have made the economics of just production of our Rd crops this year that much more difficult.

So they're they're margins.

Much thinner and and that's where I was going is.

The idea of planting lighter in some years is still fairly profitable, but in a year like this, with the increased production cost, that margin of profitability is now smaller, so we don't have as much time as we approach toward the end of May.

That's really going to be the end of it affect you then.

Rice farmers then are fighting too, or or having to calculate deal with two dynamics, one weather and the other.

The simple finances of getting a crop in.

That's correct, and harvesting it.

Yes, you're dealing with with an interesting.

Matrix there and certainly well you just touched on it.

The harvest the later we plant.

The later harvest is and the greater chance of running into difficult harvest weather more hurricane type weather that may impact harvest and profitability.

So a lot of decisions going on right now and certainly get not not even just rice but also with soybean and corn.

And how we're going to have to connect those all together.

Sure, and let's stay with rice for just a second.

I want to go to other Rd crops in a minute, but in terms is is there any way to calculate exactly where we are in?

That in that matrix right now, how much time have we got left?

And we really have about 2 weeks left before we're starting to to trend down enough.

Generally speaking, and yield potential to where we're, we're going to continue, but the the economics of things have already and the wet weather already have us, you know, well below our projected acreage that that acres have already begun to shift to potentially other crops or to acres that will that may just go unplanted for the year as they get too late.

Stay with rice for just a second.

What in a good year, and in an ordinary and average year, what would that crop worth to the state?

Well, right?

Well that that's difficult on the economic part, but you know, acreage wise that that portion of it we're in.

It's funny how it works.

For the past decade and an even numbered year 1.4 to 1.5 million acres in the state are planning to rice in in our our odd numbered years.

It's been around 1.2 million acres so this year being an even numbered year, we should be in the 1.4 to one.

Point 5,000,000 acres, and we're we're going to struggle to be much over 1,000,000 acres this year, which is again, that's potentially depending on how you look at it.

3 to 500,000 acres reduced from where we should be.

So beyond just the growers, the entire rice industry within the state of Arkansas.

All the jobs that depend on that industry, and that production that that's expected to be there are going to be impacted.

Is there really an option other than to plant or not plant plant something else?

Like potentially soybean?

That's really what it's going to be.

There is time remaining then for.

Other options in the crop options, but primarily just soybean, that's you.

You have really kind of that.

One option remaining now we mentioned other row crops as well.

Corn soybeans, yes, the upside of soybeans is that we do have more time to to still have an effective soybean crop where we're more on pace with soybean because we don't typically plant them as early corn.

However, we do plant very early and we're still well behind our typical progress and these recent rains.

We've really reached the end of the line for corn planting because you'll potential is is now, as of now, going down.

So the rains this week will, for the most part, put an effective end to corn planting and exactly how far our corn acres will follow as the results still remains to be seen, but but could be a substantial reduction there, as we've kind of run into the end of that due to the rainfall commodity prices outlook.

So far very good.

But again, we're we're expecting them to help us.

Overcome the increased input costs.

They have somewhat, but still don't look as profitable as a year ago, even with some some of the highest commodity prices we've seen in a decade.

They're still just barely attempting to keep up with those increased input costs.

Well, we have interest rates going up too.

Yes, yes, add that layer to it so it's that's a very fluid dynamic as well with just how much they're actually keeping up our marketing capabilities.

Particularly well, either domestic or overseas.

Overseas are an enormous markets.

For Arkansas crops, yes, and especially for rice, how much disruption are you seeing out there?

Well, the the the greater concern there.

If we don't hit our typical production levels of rice then we have far reaching implications on if we don't have the rights to supply those markets this year, they're going to get it from somewhere else.

And once they move to those avenues, will we get those markets back enough to get them back?

Yes, very much so.

Demonstrated that with wheat.

Couple decades ago yes, yes we have so.

So those are the kind of things that that we can be flirting with.

Upcoming that that we're certainly trying to avoid and hopefully can get hate.

Hate to bring luck into it, but that's unfortunately part of farming is get get a little luck to get enough production out of this year and have a high yielding year to overcome some of our limitations.

The Arkansas farmer would have a lot.

It would seem at stake in foreign policy, particularly in Eurasia, say on the border between Russia and and Ukraine.

Yes, we do, in fact.

Have a lot at stake with that with with where we export, and certainly we've been trying for four years to improve further exports to to Asia and related areas, particularly with rice, but we we do have a lot impacted by those well and fertilizer too.

Absolutely absolutely multifaceted.

There's so many components, foreign policy components in Arkansas agriculture.

Yes, we need things to buy from them and we need things to sell to them.

And so it it is working both directions.

And if one starts to get out of line, it has.

Dramatic impacts to to square the deal.

Yeah, and and a bit well in this hemisphere anyway.

Arkansas agriculture has been at odds for a long time, so to speak, certainly from the Farm Bureau's position with U.S. policy toward Cuba.

That remains.

The point of contention, yes it does.

It does remain a point of contention.

That's it's a great.

There's a bigger ice market there.

Yeah, that that has the potential.

Hopefully someday down the road that can be worked out.

Do you see any any movement at all on that?

I mean, the Washington has a lot of things on its collective mind right now.

And and and U.S. trade relations with Cuba don't seem to be very near the top, certainly with what's been going on the past few years.

There hasn't been a lot of conversation that I've heard about it, as everything else has has risen to the top.

What if if you had?

And let me end it this way.

If you had, would you do?

In fact, we were chatting.

You've got a son and a daughter.

You want him to go into agriculture someday, absolutely.

That's one of my greatest concerns as we continue to have a declining population in agriculture.

I was raised on a family farm, so I still live on that family farm.

My kids love it and I hope they they stay involved and want to be involved in it.

And and we're always looking and encouraging others to to keep people involved and know where their food comes from and how it's produced and wonderful opportunities in the state of Arkansas to see just how efficiently and sustainably.

We produce all of these crops and commodities and again not even just the major ones we've talked about.

But others Arkansas a wonderful place to see how we can produce a wide range of of everything.

Even with this challenges.

That's right, even with its challenges.

But as well as we do have a tendency to say within the division of agriculture, you know they're there is job security.

There's always something going on some some issue that that there is to deal with.

And that's where we want to be as helping growers.

In the communities deal with those issues and overcome and still be successful.

Doctor Jared Hockey thanks for coming in.

As always.

Come back soon.

Have me again and we'll see you next week.

Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and KUARFM 89.