DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Supreme Court declared Friday that the state’s strict abortion law is legal, urging a lower court to lift a ephemeral block on the law and allow Iowa to ban most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy – before many women know they are pregnant.
The 4-3 ruling is a victory for Republican lawmakers, and Iowa joins more than a dozen other states with restrictive abortion laws after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The instructions to the lower court will be officially sent in 21 days. Abortions remain legal in Iowa for now until 20 weeks of pregnancy. It is unclear how long it will take the district court to act after that point.
Currently, 14 states have a near-complete ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, and three states also ban abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy.
The Iowa Supreme Court majority affirmed Friday that there is no constitutional right to abortion. As requested by the state, the court instructed courts to assess whether the government has a legitimate interest in restricting the procedure, not whether it is too much of a burden on people seeking access to an abortion.
In the majority opinion, Justice Matthew McDermott wrote that the right to abortion is “not at all rooted in the history and tradition of our state.” In fact, the majority ruled that the opposite was true.
“The state’s interest in protecting the unborn can be traced back to Iowa’s earliest days,” he wrote.
But Chief Justice Susan Christensen strongly dissented, writing that the majority opinion “deprives Iowa women of their bodily autonomy.”
Christensen disagreed with McDermott, saying that the majority’s “rigid approach relies heavily on male-dominated history and 19th-century traditions” and that Iowa’s constitution was not written to reflect full and equal rights for women.
The ruling marks the conclusion of a years-long legal battle over abortion restrictions in Iowa that escalated in 2022 when the Iowa Supreme Court and then the U.S. Supreme Court each overturned decisions establishing a constitutional right to abortion.
In the rotunda of the Iowa State Capitol, Maggie DeWitte, executive director of Pulse Life Advocates, said she has been working toward this moment for 25 years.
“Today is a celebration of the lives of mothers, babies and the entire state,” she said. “The thought that we will finally have protection for children is really hard to put into words.”
Republican Governor Kim Reynolds immediately released a congratulatory statement on Friday morning.
“I am glad that the Iowa Supreme Court has affirmed the will of the people of Iowa,” she said.
The Iowa law passed in a one-day special session last July with exclusively Republican support. The next day, the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, Planned Parenthood North Central States and the Emma Goldman Clinic filed suit against the law.
The law remained in effect for a few days before being stayed by a district judge, a decision Reynolds appealed.
At the time, Planned Parenthood North Central States said it was staying open behind schedule and making hundreds of phone calls to prepare patients for the uncertain situation. For those who wanted them, abortion appointments in other states were being rescheduled. According to court documents, clinics in Iowa scheduled several hundred abortion appointments in a two-week period last July, with most of them already past the sixth week of pregnancy.
Since then, Planned Parenthood has suspended its abortion services in two Iowa cities, including Des Moines. The other location, in Des Moines, does not currently have the capacity to treat patients seeking abortions, so abortion medications and the procedure are offered about 37 miles (59 kilometers) north in Ames.
On Friday, abortion doctors in Iowa said they would continue to operate under the law. Although it is unclear when the injunction will be lifted in behind schedule July, representatives from Planned Parenthood North Central States and the Emma Goldman Clinic said they would schedule as many appointments as possible until then.
Ruth Richardson, president and CEO of PPNCS, also said the organization has made “long-term regional investments” over the past year to prepare for this outcome, including expanding facilities in Mankato, Minnesota, and Omaha, Nebraska.
“We are ready to provide the people of Iowa with the basic health care they so desperately need, even if it means traveling to another state,” she said.
Abortion access is likely to be a major issue in the 2024 election across the country, and the topic was a central point of contention in Thursday’s presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Biden commented on the Iowa ruling on Friday, saying, “Something like this should never happen in America.” It remains to be seen whether the decision will turn the tide in an increasingly Republican Iowa.
Under Iowa law, there are only a few circumstances in which an abortion would be possible after the sixth week of pregnancy: rape, if reported to authorities or a doctor within 45 days; incest, if reported within 145 days; if the fetus has a malformation “incompatible with life”; or if the pregnancy endangers the patient’s life. The state’s medical board recently issued rules on how doctors must comply with the law.
However, the details of the committee’s enforcement were rather restricted. The rules do not provide any guidance on how the committee determines violations or what disciplinary action might be appropriate.
It also lacked additional guidance on how great the risk to the pregnant woman must be before doctors can intervene. That’s a question that has plagued doctors across the country, especially after the Texas Supreme Court denied access to an abortion to a pregnant woman with life-threatening complications. The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for emergency abortions in Idaho on Thursday, but did not issue any broader rulings.
Emily Boevers, an obstetrician-gynecologist in rural Iowa who advocates for abortion access, wondered how much women have to suffer before they can receive the life-saving treatment.
“I hope our governor is available on the phone to take the calls wondering if we are crossing that line where patients are terminally ill and we can provide life-saving treatment for them,” she said Friday. “Our patients are going to suffer.”
