A bill to outlaw abortions after six weeks is being advanced by Iowan lawmakers.
The legislation was approved on Tuesday night by the Republican-majority Iowa House of Representatives and Senate. ABC News and NBC News reported that Kim Reynolds demanded a special session for the “single purpose” of passing the “pro-life” legislation.
Reynolds issued a statement after the vote, which came after a 14-hour public hearing, praising the legislature’s choice and declaring that she would sign the legislation into law on Friday.
Reynolds said, “Today they have a clear answer for the Iowa Supreme Court, which had questioned whether this legislature would pass the same law they did in 2018.
Tonight the Iowa legislature has passed — for a second time and by wider margins—legislation to protect life and end abortion at a heartbeat.
— Kim Reynolds (@KimReynoldsIA) July 12, 2023
The voices of the unborn and their elected representatives will not be silenced any longer!
Congrats to the Iowa House and Senate! pic.twitter.com/DEI2tVwNqR
She continued, “Justice for the unborn should not be delayed, and Iowans’ voices and the voices of their democratically elected representatives cannot be ignored any longer.
” .
After the state’s Supreme Court was unable to reach a decision on a similar 2018 law prohibiting abortions after six weeks, Reynolds called the special session less than a month later and ultimately decided against reinstating it, according to the Associated Press. This made the state’s current abortion law—which permits women to have an abortion up to 20 weeks into their pregnancy—stable.
The new law would reduce that window to six weeks, which is when fetal cardiac activity is first noticed but before many women are even aware they are pregnant.
The bill makes exceptions for rape, incest, and medical emergencies; however, these must be reported to law enforcement or to health organizations within a certain amount of time. Incest must be reported to authorities within 140 days, while rape must be reported to authorities within 45 days, including a public or private health agency or law enforcement.
Republican lawmakers in a special session in Des Moines, Iowa, introduced a new law banning abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, which is opposed by demonstrators gathered in the rotunda of the Iowa Capitol.
Photo by Hannah Fingerhut for AP.
If the bill is approved, Iowa will join a number of other states that have the “heartbeat bill,” including Texas, Florida, and Idaho. As in South Carolina, where the state supreme court overturned the ban on abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy in January on the grounds that it violated the state constitution, Iowa may also face legal obstacles to passing the legislation.
The ACLU of Iowa has announced that it already intends to sue in opposition to the bill, claiming that the exceptions it contains “include barriers to care” and that patients’ lives “may be at risk” due to these exceptions. ”.
Ruth Richardson, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood North Central States, issued a statement in which she said that the abortion ban that the Iowa Legislature passed today was “a devastating blow to reproductive freedom.”.
The fight for safe, legal abortion and access to reproductive healthcare will continue, she continued. We will pursue every possible avenue to guarantee that Iowans maintain control over their bodily autonomy both now and for future generations. “.
