Then-Arkansas Gov.-elect Sarah Huckabee Sanders is pictured at a Republican Governors Association convention in November 2022 in Orlando, Fla. Sanders has signed a brand new legislation that can enable an anti-abortion monument to be constructed close to the state Capitol.

Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP

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Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP

Then-Arkansas Gov.-elect Sarah Huckabee Sanders is pictured at a Republican Governors Association convention in November 2022 in Orlando, Fla. Sanders has signed a brand new legislation that can enable an anti-abortion monument to be constructed close to the state Capitol.

Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has signed a brand new legislation that can enable a monument close to the state Capitol marking the variety of abortions carried out in Arkansas earlier than the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.

Sanders’ workplace stated Friday evening that the Republican governor signed the invoice that can enable the creation of a privately funded “monument to the unborn” on the Capitol grounds. The invoice, permitted by lawmakers final week, requires the secretary of state to allow and organize the position of the monument.

It additionally requires the Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission to supervise the number of the artist and the design of the monument, with enter from anti-abortion teams.

A legislation Arkansas permitted in 2019 banning practically all abortions took effect last year when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the 1973 Roe resolution. Arkansas’ ban solely permits abortions to save lots of the lifetime of the mom in a medical emergency.

Tennessee lawmakers permitted laws in 2018 permitting an identical privately funded monument on its Capitol grounds. The monument has not but been put in.

Arkansas’ proposal confronted opposition from some anti-abortion Republicans who stated it was counterproductive, and Democrats who stated the monument proposal was divisive.

Other monuments on the state Capitol grounds embody a sculpture of the 9 Black college students who built-in Little Rock Central High School. A Ten Commandments monument was put in on the Capitol grounds in 2018.