Iowa’s Supreme Court tells lower court to let strict abortion law go into effect
The law bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected
The law bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected
The law bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected
The Iowa Supreme Court upheld an abortion law Friday that bans abortions once fetal cardiac activity is detected. Doctors say that is typically at six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the law after a one-day special session in July 2023. Days later, an Iowa judge temporarily blocked the ban.
The state appealed that ruling, and asked the Iowa Supreme Court to take up the case. The court heard arguments in April and on .
"Our holding today — applying rational basis as the constitutional test — undermines the rationale for the district court’s ruling," according to the Supreme Court's decision. "Under the rational basis test, Planned Parenthood cannot show a likelihood of success on the merits of its substantive due process challenge. We thus hold that Planned Parenthood is not entitled to a temporary injunction blocking enforcement of the fetal heartbeat statute. We reverse the order granting the temporary injunction and remand the case for the district court to dissolve the temporary injunction and continue with further proceedings."
The 4-3 ruling is a win for Republican lawmakers, and Iowa joins more than a dozen other states with restrictive abortion laws following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The instructions to the lower court will be formally sent in 21 days and, for now, abortion remains legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy. It is unclear how long the district court would take to act after that point.
In writing the majority’s opinion, Justice Matthew McDermott wrote that a right to an abortion is “not rooted at all in our state’s history and tradition.” In fact, the majority determined it was the opposite.
“The state’s interest in protecting the unborn can be traced to Iowa’s earliest days,” he wrote.
But Chief Justice Susan Christensen emphatically delivered a dissent, writing that the majority opinion “strips Iowa women of their bodily autonomy.”
Christensen countered McDermott, saying the majority’s “rigid approach relies heavily on the male-dominated history and traditions of the 1800s” and said the Iowa Constitution was not written to reflect the full and equal rights of women.
"In my opinion, the only female lives that this statute treats with any meaningful regard and dignity are the unborn lives of female fetuses," Christensen wrote. "After that, this statute forces pregnant women (and young girls) to endure and suffer through life-altering health complications that range from severe sepsis requiring limb amputation to a hysterectomy so long as those women are not at death's door. All in the name of promoting unborn life—or, more accurately, birth. Nothing promotes life like a forced hysterectomy preventing a woman from ever becoming pregnant again because she could not terminate a doomed pregnancy under the medical emergency exception."
Most Republican-led states across the country have limited abortion access since 2022, when . Currently, have near-total bans at all stages of pregnancy, and three ban abortions at about six weeks.
“There is no right more sacred than life, and nothing more worthy of our strongest defense than the innocent unborn," Reynolds said in a statement Friday morning released by her office. "Iowa voters have spoken clearly through their elected representatives, both in 2018 when the original heartbeat bill was passed and signed into law, and again in 2023 when it passed by an even larger margin. I’m glad that the Iowa Supreme Court has upheld the will of the people of Iowa.
“As the heartbeat bill finally becomes law, we are deeply committed to supporting women in planning for motherhood, and promoting fatherhood and its importance in parenting. We will continue to develop policies that encourage strong families, which includes promoting adoption and protecting in vitro fertilization. Families are the cornerstone of society, and it’s what will keep the foundation of our state and country strong for generations to come.”
WATCH: Iowa leaders react to Supreme Court's decision that allows strict abortion law to go into effect
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Iowa Democratic Party officials released a statement attributed to party chair Rita Hart, saying, "Republicans went too far with this abortion ban,"
"Today Iowa women have been stripped of reproductive rights that they have maintained for more than 50 years.
"We’ve already seen the effects that these new and extreme abortion bans have on states like Alabama – where IVF is in jeopardy – and in Texas, where women have been forced to miscarry in lobby restrooms because hospitals refused to help them while they’re experiencing medical emergencies.
"It's obvious Kim Reynolds and Iowa Republicans do not trust women to make their own decisions regarding their own medical care or for doctors to use their best judgment while treating their patients."
Exceptions that would allow for abortion after cardiac activity is detected
Iowa fetal heartbeat law: Exceptions that would allow for abortion after cardiac activity is detected
There are limited circumstances under the Iowa law that would allow for abortion after six weeks of pregnancy: rape, if reported to law enforcement or a health provider within 45 days; incest, if reported within 145 days; if the fetus has a fetal abnormality “incompatible with life”; or if the pregnancy is endangering the life of the patient. The state’s medical board recently defined rules for how doctors should adhere to the law.
Still, details from the board on enforcement were more limited. The rules do not outline how the board would determine noncompliance or what the appropriate disciplinary action might be.
Also missing was additional guidance on just how imminent risks to the pregnant women must be before doctors can intervene, a question vexing physicians across the country, especially after the Texas Supreme Court denied a pregnant woman with life-threatening complications access to abortion. While the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for emergency abortions in Idaho, the court stopped short of issuing broader rulings.
Emily Boevers, an obstetrician gynecologist practicing in rural Iowa who advocates for abortion access, questioned how far women will suffer before they are provided life-saving care.
“I hope that our governor will be available by telephone to take the calls wondering if we pass that line where patients are deadly ill and we can perform life-saving care for her,” she said Friday. "Our patients will suffer.”
Information from the Associated Press was used in this article.