Iowa Supreme Court Upholds Six-Week Abortion Ban

The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled in favor of enforcing a ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, reversing a previous order that blocked the law. This decision rejects a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood, ruling that the abortion ban is consistent with state constitutional rights.

Iowa can enforce a ban on most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, the state's highest court ruled on Friday, reversing a lower court order that had blocked the law from taking effect. The 4-3 ruling from the Iowa Supreme Court held that the law does not violate citizens' rights under the state constitution, rejecting a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The newly revived law was passed in a special legislative session in 2023, after the state Supreme Court failed to revive a separate 2018 abortion ban in a 3-3 deadlock, with one justice not participating for unspecified reasons. The legislature's Republican majority rebuffed Democrats' efforts to expand the law's exceptions, including a proposed exception for pregnant children aged 12 or under.

The law bans abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected. That is usually around six weeks, before many people know they are pregnant. It makes exceptions for rape, incest and fetal abnormality that a doctor reasonably believes is incompatible with life, and in the event that continuing the pregnancy would create a serious risk of irreversible harm to the woman's body.

Before Friday's ruling, abortion was legal until 20 weeks in Iowa. Justice Matthew McDermott, writing for the majority in Friday's opinion, said there was no fundamental right to abortion under the state constitution because such a right was not "deeply rooted" in the state's "history and tradition." He noted that the state had banned abortions since adopting its constitution in the 1840s until the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling establishing a right to abortion nationwide.

McDermott said the six-week ban was "rationally related to the state's legitimate interest in protecting unborn life." Chief Justice Susan Christensen, in a dissent, wrote that the decision "strips Iowa women of their bodily autonomy."

"The majority's rigid approach relies heavily on the male-dominated history and traditions of the 1800s, all the while ignoring how far women's rights have come since the Civil War era," she wrote. Iowa, like other Republican-controlled states, moved to ban abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. (Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Alexia Garamfalvi and Josie Kao)

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