Iowa’s Supreme Court blocks law that would ban abortion after 6 weeks

Iowa abortion ban overview: 

• Who: Iowa’s Supreme Court refused to overturn an injunction against the state’s fetal heartbeat abortion ban. 
• Why: The court voted 3-3 and deemed it would not re-open the case and create a new law, leaving that to the Iowa Legislature.
• Where: The ruling applies in the state of Iowa.

The Iowa Supreme Court refused to overturn a prior injunction against the state’s fetal heartbeat abortion law, stating that it would not take the unprecedented action to reverse a ruling on a bill that was previously deemed unconstitutional.

The court’s vote was a split 3-3, meaning the district court’s ruling against overturning the law was allowed to stand. 

“The State appealed, and now asks our court to do something that has never happened in Iowa history: to simultaneously bypass the legislature and change the law, to adopt rational basis review, and then to dissolve an injunction to put a statute into effect for the first time in the same case in which that very enactment was declared unconstitutional years earlier,” Justice Thomas D. Waterman wrote in the ruling. “In our view, it is legislating from the bench to take a statute that was moribund when it was enacted and has been enjoined for four years and then to put it into effect.”

Iowa Attorney General Breanna Bird said she was disappointed in the ruling but vowed to continue to fight for the rights of the unborn.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds vowed that the fight against abortion in Iowa is not over

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds issued a statement on the ruling, stating that she felt the ruling disregarded the views of those who elected the Legislature and the rights of the unborn. She vowed to continue the fight for an Iowa abortion ban.

“There is no right more sacred than life, and nothing more worthy of our strongest defense than the innocent unborn,” Reynolds said. “We are reviewing our options in preparation for continuing the fight.”

A state judge in South Carolina issued a temporary injunction against the state’s six-week abortion ban. The North Carolina Legislature recently passed a 12-week abortion ban.

Do you live in a state with an abortion ban? Let us know in the comments.

The Iowa abortion ban ruling is Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, Inc., Emma Goldman Clinic and Jill Meadows v. Kim Reynolds, ex rel. State of Iowa and Iowa Board of Medicine, Ruling No. 22-2036 from the Iowa Supreme Court.

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