NEWSworthy: Iowa lawmakers pass fetal heartbeat abortion ban—Iowa lawmakers ban abortion after six weeks: *UPDATE BELOW ARTICLE*
Iowa lawmakers passed a “fetal heartbeat” abortion ban on July 11, banning abortion after six weeks’ gestation. The state’s Republican Governor Kim Reynolds signed the bill into law Friday. “The measure,” NBC reports, “includes exceptions for the life of the woman, miscarriages and fetal abnormalities deemed by a physician ‘incompatible with life’” as well as exceptions for rape or incest.
Protestors from both sides gathered in the Iowa State Capitol rotunda on Tuesday. One of them, Sara Eide of the Iowa Catholic Conference, offered a staunch defense of life.
“The unborn child is a distinct human life with her own value, with her own DNA, and with her own right to life and right to legal protections,” she said. “As a state and as a society, we should commit ourselves to protect all vulnerable populations wherever we find them.”
Previously, abortion was banned in the state after 20 weeks gestation, a limit much more permissive even than most countries in the European Union.
That hasn’t stopped pro-abortion advocates from fearmongering about the legislation. Abortion providers and the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa almost immediately sued to block the legislation after it was passed by the legislature.
Iowa joins several other states in passing a pro-life heartbeat bill. The Hawkeye State actually passed a fetal heartbeat bill in 2018, but after it was repeatedly blocked by courts, Reynolds called the special legislative session this week to pass a new bill.
On Wednesday, they filed a challenge “asking a Polk County District judge to temporarily block it from taking effect and then hear arguments to determine whether the law is constitutional,” per the Des Moines Register. On Monday, the judge temporarily blocked it while the court case plays out.
Planned Parenthood North Central States President Ruth Richardson said in a statement that if the ban goes into effect, “hundreds of Iowans will be impacted in mere weeks.” Unfortunately, she isn’t referring to the babies whose lives will be saved.
The Des Moines Register quoted Polk County District Judge Joseph Seidlin as noting in his comments accompanying the injunction, “there are good, honorable and intelligent people—morally, politically and legally—on both sides of this upsetting societal and constitutional dilemma.”
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