Little Rock Police set up a “Sky Watch” camera in the parking lot across from Little Rock Family Planning Services, the state’s only spot dedicated to providing surgical abortions.
The business complex, called Office Park, has previously had a 24/7 camera in place, but the visibility of the new LRPD crane lift, according to Karen Musick of Arkansas Abortion Support Network, is already working wonders to deter aggression from protestors. But in a time when people are deleting their personal data from period tracking apps for fear it might become incriminating evidence in the event that abortion becomes illegal, the presence of a camera near the clinic may not be an entirely welcome development.
The lot is owned by the aforementioned Arkansas Abortion Support Network, a Little Rock-based group that works to reduce barriers to abortion access through abortion funding, clinic escorting and community outreach. Formerly the site for a crisis pregnancy center, the Arkansas Abortion Support Network bought the site in 2018 using grant money after the crisis pregnancy center once located there burned down. Another crisis pregnancy center has set up shop in an adjacent office complex.
The Little Rock Family Planning Services clinic been a hotspot for anti-abortion protesters, who gather during clinic hours and harangue patients as they enter the clinic for procedures or other appointments, often clashing with Arkansas Abortion Support Network’s clinic escorts who volunteer in shifts to make sure the patients get in safely and with minimal harassment. If the draft opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court leaked in May becomes law and overturns reproductive rights put into place by the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, then time is running out for those seeking access to surgical abortions like the ones provided at Little Rock Family Planning. The camera, Musick said, was placed in an effort “to be ready” in the event the draft opinion overturns Roe v. Wade, instituting an abortion ban and removing federal protections for people seeking to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.
“The protestors’ behavior has generally been so much better since that thing’s been up there,” Musick said. “They’re not nearly as bad about stopping cars in the driveway or standing in the driveway and blocking them, so that little piece of it has been kind of nice.” That hasn’t stopped the clashes altogether, though; in fact, Musick said it was only this morning that police were called out to the location. “One of the protestors assaulted one of our escorts,” Musick said, “and hit her over her head with an umbrella. We had the police out here, and they were able to access the 24/7 camera that they’ve always had here.”
So is the camera there to deter clashes between escorts and protestors? And if Roe v. Wade is erased and access to surgical abortion is outlawed in Arkansas (the state’s so-called trigger law would outlaw abortion in the state as soon as the Supreme Court decision is released), what happens to the camera? Does it stay under the assumption that the lot will remain an epicenter for political protest?
Officer Kyle Henson of Little Rock Police Department’s Special Divisions Operation told us the request to drop off a lift camera came to his team via LRPD’s Northwest Patrol Division, the law enforcement outpost on Kanis Road. Musick said it was installed around May 27. A representative at the division told us that it’s typical for such requests to come from the City of Little Rock, so we called Aaron Sadler, communications director for Mayor Frank Scott Jr.’s office and Little Rock Police Department Public Information Officer Mark Edwards. Edwards wasn’t able to confirm that the request came from the city, but said it’s typical for the lifts to be installed temporarily where they can document (or deter) crime.
