Even before the ink was dry on Iowa's new abortion legislation, strictest in the country, pro-choice groups filed legal challenges against it, and that was exactly what state Republicans were hoping for, the Washington Examiner reports.
Iowa Republicans have Roe vs. Wade in their crosshairs, and they plan on using their "heartbeat" bill as a battering ram all the way to the Supreme Court to finally overturn the 45-year-old landmark abortion case, the Examiner reports.
"The first thing I think we need to realize is that this bill was put in place really to challenge the Supreme Court," Iowa state Sen. Rick Bertrand told Fox News last week. "There's a lot of us in the pro-life movement that understand that life at conception is where life begins and really to force this back to the Supreme Court."
However, there are three major hurdles facing Iowa Republicans:
- The legal challenges filed by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU are state constitutional arguments. The "heartbeat" bill could die on the vine right there.
- If the Iowa state Supreme Court issues a ruling based on federal law, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has already shot down similar legislation in other states.
- If it did somehow make it to the Supreme Court, the court is currently not constructed in favor of abortion conservatives.
"I wouldn't be optimistic about the prospects of the Iowa bill making its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court," Steven Aden, chief legal officer for Americans United for Life, told the Examiner.
Even if it did, swing vote Justice Anthony Kennedy remains on the High Court, which has rebuffed similar challenges to legalized abortion.
"The Supreme Court in its current composition has shown no indication of any desire to (accept a challenge to Roe)," Paul Gowder, a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law, told the Examiner.
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