Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law Friday afternoon banning most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. It went into effect immediately.
She signed the bill at a large gathering of evangelical Christians in Des Moines where Republican presidential candidates were the featured speakers.
Reynolds said the bill passed during a special legislative session Tuesday reinforces a law she signed five years ago that was blocked from enforcement. Last month, the Iowa Supreme Court deadlocked on Reynolds’ request to reinstate it.
“Iowa’s 2018 heartbeat law was not hypothetical,” she said. “It was not an empty gesture, and it was not a mistake. It was an ironclad commitment to the smallest and most vulnerable among us.”
Shortly before Reynolds signed the law, Polk County District Court Judge Joseph Seidlin said he will issue a ruling, likely on Monday, which will determine whether or not the law can be enforced.
But as of Friday afternoon, almost all abortions in Iowa were prohibited once cardiac activity can be detected, when many women don’t yet know they are pregnant.
Democrats hope it will be blocked by the courts.
“Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill today that attacks the freedom and threatens the futures of Iowa women—and she did it before a crowd of special interest insiders,” Senate Democratic Leader Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque said in a statement. “The lives and well-being of Iowa women are at risk for as long as this law is in effect.”
The law bans abortions after cardiac activity is detected with an abdominal ultrasound, which can be as early as six weeks after the beginning of a person’s last menstrual period. This is when the pregnancy is still considered an embryo, not a fetus, and is before a heart has developed. This is why medical providers have said the “fetal heartbeat” terminology used in the law is misleading.
It has exceptions for rape, incest, miscarriage treatment, medical emergencies that endanger the mother’s life and fetal abnormalities that are incompatible with life.
But opponents of the law have said there are limits to the exceptions that make them unworkable and can put pregnant people at risk.
Lawyers for abortion providers were in court Friday afternoon arguing that the law should be blocked from enforcement. Planned Parenthood attorney Peter Im said the ban violates Iowans' constitutional rights.
Iowa Assistant Attorney General Daniel Johnston disagreed, and said the court should uphold the ban.
“Petitioners would have the court believe the only hardship here is to their patients, and that’s the only thing that weighs in the balance, and there are no countervailing interests on the other side of that scale," Johnston said. "But the fetal heartbeat bill aims to prevent the destruction of human lives, and the court must take those lives into account in its analysis.”
Im asked Judge Seidlin to block the ban from enforcement immediately Friday afternoon as Reynolds was signing it into law. He said Iowa providers had patients scheduled for abortions on Monday.
“These patients need certainty about whether they’ll be able to get an abortion because they’re put in this difficult spot where they have to decide whether to keep their appointment in a state where they’re not sure if they’ll be able to get care, or if it’s possible for them—and for many it’s not—to go out of state with all the financial and logistical hurdles that could entail," Im said.
Seidlin said he would not "flippantly" rule on such a serious issue so quickly.
“I cannot think of anything that would be more insulting to either side than for a judge, who before Wednesday at 11:00 did not have any idea he was going to be involved in any of this, to listen to arguments and then rule from the bench," he said.
This lawsuit is expected to reach the Iowa Supreme Court, and if it does, the justices may finally issue a ruling that determines whether or not the six-week ban is constitutional and can be enforced in the long term.
This story was updated Friday, July 14 at 5:22 p.m.
