Before Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio made headlines for passing extreme near-total abortion bans, Arkansas and North Dakota did the same years prior.
Advocacy groups immediately sued when Arkansas and North Dakota passed so-called heartbeat laws in 2013. By the end of the years-long legal battles, both states spent thousands of dollars defending these bans after losing in federal courts. Altogether, officials told ThinkProgress the states spe...