Iowa Considers 6-Week Abortion Ban in Special Session

Protesters gathered in the Iowa Capitol rotunda as the Legislature convened a special session Tuesday focused exclusively on abortion restrictions, where Republican lawmakers will work to pass a new ban on almost all abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy.

The marathon day of committee meetings, floor debates and votes in both chambers is expected to extend late into the night. Demonstrators for and against the bill are expected to rally at the capitol building throughout the day.

Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds ordered the rare session after the state Supreme Court declined to reinstate a law she signed in 2018 that is practically identical to the one being proposed Tuesday. Abortion is currently legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The current draft, like the 2018 law, would prohibit abortion once cardiac activity can be detected, which is usually around six weeks of pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant.

Chants from abortion advocates echoed through the rotunda and could be heard from rooms where state representatives and senators were meeting. Members of the public for and against the bill alternated conveying their viewpoints to lawmakers from both chambers for nearly four hours in total.

Sara Eide of the Iowa Catholic Conference encouraged lawmakers to vote in favor.

“The unborn child is a distinct human life with her own value, with her own DNA, and with her own right to life and right to legal protections,” she said. “As a state and as a society, we should commit ourselves to protect all vulnerable populations wherever we find them.”

Hilary McAdoo, a fertility nurse, said her two daughters motivated her to voice her opposition Tuesday.

“Just because a person has the ability to become pregnant does not mean they should be forced to become a mother,” she said. “The people before me want to govern women’s bodies without understanding how they work."

McAdoo called the six-week cutoff “impossible and irresponsible.”

Laws such as Iowa’s ban abortion when a “ fetal heartbeat ” can be detected, a concept that does not easily translate to medical science. That’s because at the point where advanced technology can detect that first visual flutter, the embryo isn’t yet a fetus, and it doesn’t have a heart. An embryo is termed a fetus beginning in the 11th week of pregnancy, medical experts say.

After the House gaveled into session, Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst objected to the urgency that Republican lawmakers have introduced.

“If there is an issue that is important enough to bring us all back in July, it is not our job to help you get it to the governor faster,” she said. “It is our job to truly debate this bill, and we will not have ample opportunity to do that when we’re rushing this through.”

There are limited circumstances under the measure that would allow for abortion after that point in a pregnancy — such as rape, if reported to law enforcement or a health provider within 45 days; incest, if reported within 145 days; if the fetus has a fetal abnormality “incompatible with life;” and if the pregnancy is endangering the life of the pregnant woman.

A district court found the 2018 law unconstitutional in 2019 based on rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and Iowa’s Supreme Court that had affirmed a woman’s fundamental constitutional right to abortion.

After both bodies overturned those rulings last year, the governor sought to reinstate the 2018 law. But the state's high court deadlocked last month without ruling on the merits of an abortion ban, leaving the law permanently blocked.

And so Reynolds called lawmakers back to Des Moines.

Maggie DeWitte, the executive director of Pulse Life Advocates, an organization that opposes abortion, said the bill has been “a long time coming.”

“It is beyond time to once and for all have this heartbeat law passed for the second time, signed into law for the second time, but now able to be enforced,” she said.

Demonstrator Tim Rutledge, of Des Moines, brought his 8-year-old son to the Capitol to show him that democracy is participatory.

“Health care is a human right. All people should be able to make decisions about their own bodies,” said Rutledge. “The fact that our governor and elected officials cannot — or do not — recognize this is unconscionable.”

The draft of the measure released Friday indicates that Republican lawmakers want it to take immediate effect with the governor's signature.

If passed, Planned Parenthood North Central States is prepared to quickly challenge the law in court, and will meanwhile refer patients out of state if they're scheduled for abortions in the next few weeks. It will continue to provide care to patients who present before cardiac activity is detected.

Most Republican-led states have drastically limited abortion access in the year since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and handed authority on abortion law to the states. More than a dozen states have bans with limited exceptions and one state, Georgia, bans abortion after cardiac activity is detected. Several other states have similar restrictions that are on hold pending court rulings.