Iowa Governor Asks Court to Allow Blocked 2018 Abortion Ban

DES MOINES, Iowa –

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds asked state courts Thursday to allow her to implement a law banning most abortions that a judge permanently blocked in 2019.

Reynolds previously said he would go to court instead of calling a special session to hold a divisive abortion debate and vote just months before she and several other Republican leaders run for re-election. The court filing is just the first step in a legal battle that could take months to resolve and end up back before the Iowa Supreme Court.

The 2018 law bans abortions once heart activity can be detected, usually around six weeks into the pregnancy and before many women know they’re pregnant. An Iowa law banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy remains in place, while Reynolds is pursuing the stricter ban in court.

Reynolds’ attorneys argue that since the US Supreme Court and the Iowa Supreme Court have now struck down broad constitutional protections for abortion rights, the previous order should be struck down and the law enforced.

“The US Supreme Court’s landmark ruling overturning Roe has given us new hope and a path forward to challenge the Iowa court’s earlier decision,” Reynolds said in a statement. “Life and death are determined by a person’s heartbeat, and I think that includes our unborn children.”

Laws like the one in Iowa that ban abortion when a “fetal heartbeat” can be detected, though that doesn’t translate easily to medical science. That’s because at the point where advanced technology can detect that first visual flutter, the embryo is not yet a fetus and does not have a heart. An embryo is called a fetus eight weeks after fertilization.

Iowa law contains exceptions for medical emergencies including threats to the life of the mother, rape, incest, and fetal abnormalities.

Iowa House Democratic Leader Jennifer Konfrst said Reynolds is circumventing the will of the people in a state where polls show most people support abortion rights. A poll published last month by the Des Moines Register indicated that 60 percent of Iowans believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

“This is the opposite of what Iowans tell us they want,” Konfrst said. “This is very extreme. We’ve seen voters across the country reject this and because the governor knows voters would reject this here in Iowa, she’s playing politics.”

In June, the Iowa high court overturned an earlier ruling guaranteeing abortion rights under the state constitution, acting just a week before the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Reynolds’ attorneys said the state Supreme Court “can and should dissolve the injunction permanently at this time because no further factual development is needed to establish that there has been a ‘substantial change’ in the law.”

The law was successfully challenged by abortion provider Planned Parenthood and attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa. They said they plan to continue fighting Reynolds’ efforts in the state.

“This is an outrageous and dangerous attack on Iowa women seeking to take away virtually all access to abortion in our state,” said ACLU of Iowa Legal Director Rita Bettis Austen. “We will continue to do everything in our power to stop attempts to ban abortion in Iowa.”

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