Iowa legislators will wait for state Supreme Court on abortion issue

Hunter
01/03/23

With the 2023 legislative session starting in less than a week, Republican leaders say they plan to wait on the Iowa Supreme Court before they attempt to enact further restrictive abortion bills.

The Court reversed a 2018 decision and now says that the Iowa Constitution doesn’t provide women a fundamental right to abortion. However, the justices haven’t specified what standard they would use to rule on potential new laws, and stopped short on reinstating the Iowa law that would ban abortions except in the earliest weeks of pregnancy.

Governor Kim Reynolds requested reinstatement of the law, which would effectively ban abortion in Iowa once cardiac activity is detected, around the sixth week of pregnancy. Opponents of the bill say that many women don’t even know they’re pregnant by that time, and the law would block more than 98 percent of abortions performed in Iowa. The governor’s request was denied by an Iowa District Court judge in December. Reynolds has appealed to the State Supreme Court and awaits a decision.

State Republican lawmakers pushing for the reinstatement say they will wait until the Court makes their decision on the law before passing any abortion bills.

Five of the seven state Supreme Court justices were appointed by Governor Reynolds. The other two are also Republican appointees.