Beginning on Monday, most preborn children are protected from abortion in Iowa, as the state’s ‘heartbeat law’ (HF 732) took effect.
The law protects preborn children from abortion once a heartbeat is detectable (usually at about six weeks gestation), though the heart begins beating just 22 days after fertilization (5 weeks gestation). The law contains some exceptions, allowing for children conceived in rape or incest to be intentionally killed by induced abortion. It also allows an exception for the life of the mother though induced abortion — the direct and intentional killing of a preborn child — is not medically necessary and is not the standard of care for pregnancy-related emergencies.
Last week, the Iowa Supreme Court denied Planned Parenthood of the Heartland’s (now known as Planned Parenthood North Central States) request that it rehear a case it had brought against the law.
The ACLU of Iowa, Planned Parenthood, and the Emma Goldman Clinic (a facility offering abortions up to 19 weeks, 6 days) challenged the law when it was approved in 2023. A district court sided with the pro-abortion groups and blocked the law; however, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled 4-3 on June 28 that the law is constitutional. The state Supreme Court gave the lower court 21 days to dissolve the injunction, and allow the law to take effect. The pro-abortion groups made one final attempt to block the law, but were denied by the state Supreme Court.
“Today is a victory for life, ” said Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds. “There is nothing more sacred and no cause more worthy than protecting innocent unborn lives.”
Planned Parenthood claimed the requirements to allow abortion when the mother’s life is at risk are unclear; however, even if a pregnancy must end due to the pregnant mother’s health, the child can be delivered alive, and doctors can attempt to save both lives when possible. If a child dies as a result of preterm delivery carried out to save the mother’s life, it is not considered an induced abortion, and is not prohibited by Iowa’s law or any other state pro-life law. The Iowa law defines a “medical emergency” specifically as:
… a situation in which an abortion is performed to preserve the life of the pregnant woman whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy, but not including psychological conditions, emotional conditions, familial conditions, or the woman’s age; or when continuation of the pregnancy will create a serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.
Kristina Remus, a Planned Parenthood patient services associate, said “the last few weeks have been hard,” and noted that she is helping about half of the women who had abortions scheduled for this week to travel out of state for abortions. Other women with scheduled abortions for this week were rescheduled for last week, meaning Planned Parenthood was “overbooking our schedules” to commit more abortions before the law took effect.
“But I would say 30% of the people I talked to on the phone told me that, ‘Well, I can’t get off work this week, you know, I’m already scheduled for work this week, and I can’t find day care, I can’t get off work — I have it for next week,’” she said. “So unfortunately, those people, I was able to connect them with a navigator, and they will have to go out of state, because they are already above the (gestational age) of six weeks. So I would say we were able to get in maybe 50 percent of the people that were scheduled for next week, but the rest of them, the fact is that it was too it was too late of notice for them to rearrange their schedules to be able to come sooner.”
Notably, Planned Parenthood has known for three weeks that this law would take effect.
Before Monday, induced abortion was legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks gestation.
