Amplify Legal, the litigation arm of Abortion in America

Waldorf v. Arkansas is a current lawsuit challenging Arkansas’s abortion restrictions, recently heard by a Pulaski County circuit judge late September of 2026. The plaintiffs are represented by Amplify Legal, the litigation arm of Abortion in America, an abortion-rights advocacy organization. Amplify Legal itself says this is the first lawsuit in which they are seeking to have Arkansas’s near total abortion ban struck down in its entirety.

Plaintiff Theresa Van is one of 4 woman and a physician suing the state of Arkansas by stating the case is about a women's right to life versus a right to abortion. "At my 20-week appointment is when we found out that I had low amniotic fluid, and then I was referred to a specialist at 22 weeks. And that's where we found out that she had none. And then I was forced to carry her for an additional seven weeks until she passed away on her own. And so I would go in for weekly appointments to see if she was alive," Van said. 

As we know, viability outside the womb at 24 weeks is 42%-59%, at 25 weeks its 67%-80%, at 26 weeks its 80%-90%, only increasing every week. Even if labor was induced as early as 22 weeks, the infant would have been born alive and could've received palliative care, or in the right hospital, rigorous medical intervention to give the infant the best chance of survival. With early intervention by medical staff, the mother can receive a steroid injection that helps the baby's lungs develop faster. It is scientifically proven that use of this steroid injection aids in the baby's viability outside the womb. If Van carried her child to 29 weeks before the baby passed, I have to question why labor was not induced at anytime between 22-28 weeks, especially with weekly visits and monitoring. By 28 weeks, the doctor should have advised the patient of early delivery to give the child the best odds of survival, and decrease complications caused by a miscarriage. Inducing labor or performing a cesarean, and providing the child with palliative care or rigorous medical intervention is not an abortion, and is the least dangerous form of intervention to both mother and baby. 

Its also to important to recognize in this case, given the baby was post 20 weeks gestation, this would've been considered a late term abortion. The infant likely would've been injected in the heart with medicine to stop the heart from beating. Then, an abortionist would've tore the baby apart limb to limb to suction the baby out as much as possible. The mother still would have needed labor inducing medications to help clear remaining tissue and the placenta from the uterus. Not only would this have been much more dangerous due to excessive bleeding or possible infection due to residual tissue left in the uterus, the mother would've been at risk for never bearing another child again due to the scraping of the uterine lining. 

There is no outcome in this case in which an abortion was necessary. We could absolutely challenge the care of the physician as to why early delivery was never an option given to the mother, but we have no definite proof yet of that being denied to Van. Did Van deny delivering her child early over and over? Did Van seek alternative medical advice? There are many questions that need to be answered to declare any sort of malpractice. 

A critical question is whether the patients' experiences demonstrate that Arkansas law actually prohibited medically necessary treatment, or whether physicians and hospitals failed to properly apply care already permitted under the law. Arkansas amended the statute in 2025 to expressly allow physicians to act according to "reasonable medical judgment" when treatment is necessary to preserve a pregnant woman's life. The fact that a physician declined treatment does not, by itself, establish that the law required that decision.

Amplify Legal is not merely seeking clarification of the medical-emergency provision: the organization says its goal in Waldorf v. Arkansas is to strike down Arkansas's abortion ban in its entirety. That broader objective is important context when evaluating its argument that these individual medical cases demonstrate that the underlying law itself is unconstitutional. 

To read more about the specific details heard in court,  visit https://www.4029tv.com/article/arkansas-near-total-abortion-ban-lawsuit-hearing/73931951