DES MOINES (LifeSiteNews) — Iowa’s ban on aborting babies with detectable heartbeats will finally take effect next Monday, following the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision last month to uphold it.
In July 2023, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law banning abortion starting at around six weeks, with exceptions for rape, incest, allegedly fatal “fetal abnormalities,” and supposed threats to the mother’s life. Iowa already had such a ban since 2018, but the state’s highest court had deadlocked on its legality.
Three justices argued that the law should have been allowed to take effect in light of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, and three held that, as Justice Thomas Waterman claimed, it would “bypass the legislature” to let an act of the legislature take effect and that “legislative reenactment” should be required to “assur[e] that a current legislative majority supports the statutory restriction on liberty.”
In response, Reynolds filed an appeal of the ruling and called a special legislative session to pass the heartbeat ban again, giving the court a “clear answer” as to the will of the legislature and declaring that the “voices of Iowans and their democratically elected representatives cannot be ignored any longer, and justice for the unborn should not be delayed.”
Near the end of June, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled 4-3 against Planned Parenthood’s bid to continue the temporary injunction, although it was not immediately clear when the block would be lifted.
On Monday, a district court resolved that confusion with District Judge Jeffrey Farrell ordering that the heartbeat law take effect July 29 at 8 a.m. central time, the Associated Press reports.
“Today is a victory for life. There is nothing more sacred and no cause more worthy than protecting innocent unborn lives,” Reynolds responded. “As the fetal heartbeat law finally takes effect, our work will continue to strengthen a culture of life in Iowa.”
However, the governor reiterated her support for embryo destroying in-vitro fertilization (IVF).
14 states currently ban all or most abortions. But the abortion lobby is working feverishly to cancel out those deterrent effects by deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors, and embedding abortion “rights” in state constitutions.