Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) on Thursday signed into law a bill allowing for the creation of a “monument to the unborn” on the grounds of the Arkansas State Capitol. The signing was confirmed by the governor’s office on Friday night. The bill, which requires the monument be designed with input from anti-abortion groups, was passed in the State Legislature last week. It allows for private funding to create a memorial to “unborn children aborted during the era of Roe v. Wade,” according to the bill’s language. Its House sponsor, Rep. Mary Bentley (R), said its aim was to “remember those children we were not able to protect and we will not be able to forget.” Some anti-abortion lawmakers pushed back on the efforts to legalize the monument’s placement, with Rep. Steve Unger (R) calling it “a memorial to an ongoing culture war” that had the feel of “spiking the football” after the end of Roe, according to the Associated Press.
