Iowa’s Senate passed a measure banning abortions in the state once a fetal heartbeat is heard, usually around six weeks, making it one of the most restrictive abortion timeframes in the United States.
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The legislation was already approved by the House of Representatives and just needs to be signed by anti-abortionist, Republican Governor Kim Reynolds in order to become law.
Republican state Senator Rick Bertrand, representing Sioux City, says this bill is an explicit attempt to use the current conservative-majority Supreme Court to challenge that institution’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision which made it potentially legal to obtain an abortion until the end of the second trimester of pregnancy.
Seeing that Republican President Donald Trump recently named Justice Neil Gorsuch to the bench, Bertrand says, "We created an opportunity to take a run at Roe v. Wade - 100 percent." He added Iowa’s legislation was designed to "thrust into the court" the question of whether or not abortion should remain legal, with few exceptions.
Spokeswoman Becca Lee of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, which supports abortion access under the law, called it an "intentionally unconstitutional ban on 99 percent of safe, legal abortion, designed to challenge Roe v. Wade."
Lee told Reuters, "The bill weaponizes fetal heartbeat, which is by all accounts an arbitrary standard that bans abortion long before the point of fetal viability."
Iowa’s conservative ruling follows similar measures passed by other red states - Mississippi and Kentucky. In March Mississippi passed a law banning abortion after 15 weeks with some exceptions. Last month Kentucky lawmakers passed a law banning common abortions after the 11th week, the only exceptions being if the woman was a victim of rape or incest. The law is currently suspended while it’s being heard in the courts.
The Iowa bill was passed in the final days of the state’s legislative session.