Iowa
‘s Supreme Court announced Friday morning that it would uphold a lower court’s decision to strike down Gov.
Kim Reynolds’s
(R-IA) six-week
abortion
ban, keeping the current 20-week limitation in place.
Friday’s 3-3 decision split the high court, which consists of mainly Republican appointees, resulting in a default to the ruling of the lower court standing law.
BIDEN STEPS ONTO 2024 CAMPAIGN TRAIL IN TRUMP’S SHADOW
The district-level court
nullified
Reynolds’s six-week ban in 2019, when both Iowa and the federal government protected abortion rights under Roe v. Wade. In June 2022, however, the Iowa Supreme Court
determined
in a case concerning waiting periods for abortion services that there is no fundamental right to an abortion in the state constitution. This decision, coupled with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case that de-federalized abortion law, prompted Reynolds to
send
her six-week ban to the state’s high court for review.
Justice Thomas Waterman, who voted against reinstating the heartbeat bill, noted in the
ruling
that the case is “extraordinary” because of the length of time between the lower court’s decision and Reynolds’s request for Supreme Court review.
The case “involves the polarizing issue of abortion, and specifically an unprecedented effort to judicially revive a statute that was declared unconstitutional in a never-appealed final judgment four years ago,” Waterman said, speaking on behalf of himself along with Justices Susan Christensen and Edward Mansfield.
“In our view,” Waterman said, “it is legislating from the bench to take a statute that was moribund when it was enacted and has been enjoined for four years and then to put it into effect.”
Justices Christopher McDonald, Matthew McDermott, and David May voted to overturn the lower court’s injunction of the six-week ban based upon the Dobbs ruling irrespective of the four-year gap. Justice Dana Oxley recused herself from the case, resulting in the unorthodox 3-3 split.
Planned Parenthood
called Friday’s decision “a resounding victory for Iowans and reproductive freedom,” saying that the organization “will continue to proudly provide abortion care at our health centers across the state.”
The decision to keep abortion available for up to 20 weeks of pregnancy is likely to make Iowa a new destination for abortion tourism in the Midwest.
Abortion in neighboring
Missouri
has been completely banned with few exceptions since the Dobbs decision was released last year.
Nebraska
also has limitations on abortion up to the twelfth week of pregnancy.
Less than 24 hours after South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R-SC) signed a six-week ban that passed in the state legislature, Planned Parenthood
filed
an injunction to thwart the legislation through the courts. South Carolina’s Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for the case on June 27.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
According to the
Guttmacher Institute
, a pro-abortion research organization, there were 3,510 abortions in Iowa in 2020, which was down by 7% since 2017.
Although the majority of abortions are performed within the first trimester,
preliminary
data suggest that there has been a 40% increase in second-trimester abortions since June 2022, and an increase of 13% in women traveling to Iowa for abortion services.
