Iowa may not enforce a law approved last year that required women seeking an abortion to receive an ultrasound and then wait at least 24 hours before undergoing the procedure, a judge ordered on Monday.
Iowa District Judge Mitchell Turner ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland and said the law, which was signed by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds on June 29, 2020, after lawmakers passed it as an amendment to a bill relating to the withdrawal of life-sustaining procedures from minors, violated the state constitution’s “single subject” rule that requires that every act in the Legislature “shall embrace but one subject.”
Turner also ruled that the law violates Iowa Supreme Court precedent, which established in 2018 that “under the Iowa constitution, that implicit in the concept of ordered liberty is the ability to decide whether to continue or terminate a pregnancy.”
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“Given this clear precedent, this Court finds that Petitioners have established that a twenty-four hour waiting requirement is an invasion or threatened invasion ‘upon the fundamental rights of the people,’” Turner said.
“Once again, the court righted a legislative overreach related to abortion care, and the court’s decision means access to safe and legal abortion in Iowa remains unchanged,” Jamie Burch Elliott, Planned Parenthood North Central States director of public affairs, said at a Tuesday press conference.
Turner “wrongly struck down our efforts to protect all innocent human life,” Reynolds, who was a defendant in the suit, said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
“I will be working with our legal counsel to appeal this recent decision, and I believe we can win,” the statement added.
The 24-hour waiting period requirement replaced a 72-hour waiting period in state law, which was blocked by the Iowa Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling.
“The [act creating a waiting period] takes no care to target patients who are uncertain when they present for their procedures but, instead, imposes blanket hardships upon all women,” former Chief Justice Mark Cady wrote in the 2018 case.
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Planned Parenthood originally sued Iowa over the amendment on June 23 of last year, arguing that it “flagrantly defies clear and binding precedent recognizing that Iowans have a protected liberty interest in terminating an unwanted pregnancy,” according to a summary of arguments outlined in Turner’s ruling. Turner temporarily enjoined the state from enforcing the law on June 30.
