The Iowa Supreme Court overruled a 2018 decision that shielded abortion under the state’s constitution, a move that removes guardrails from lawmakers who seek to ban future abortions in the state.
“All we hold today is that the Iowa Constitution is not the source of a fundamental right to an abortion necessitating a strict scrutiny standard of review for regulations affecting that right,” the court ruled.
Iowa’s Supreme Court, whose justices are all Republican appointees, concluded that the 2018 court wrongly decided abortion is a fundamental privacy right guaranteed by state and federal law.
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The decision on Friday stemmed from a lawsuit filed by abortion providers who challenged a 2020 law that required a full day waiting period before a woman could get an abortion. Judge Mitchell E. Turner previously struck down the law and cited the state high court’s 2018 ruling.
The state Supreme Court also returned the waiting period case to the district court.
In its 2018 ruling, the state Supreme Court said that “autonomy and dominion over one’s body go to the very heart of what it means to be free.”
Republicans in control of Iowa’s statehouse are pressing to pass a constitutional amendment to ban abortion in the state. If that happens, a final decision will rely on voters to ratify any amendment to the state constitution.
Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA) said the “ruling is a significant victory in our fight to protect the unborn.”
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“The Iowa Supreme Court reversed its earlier 2018 decision, which made Iowa the most abortion-friendly state in the country. Every life is sacred and should be protected, and as long as I’m governor, that is exactly what I will do,” Reynolds said.
Iowa’s ruling comes as the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., is closing in on a major consequential abortion decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization after a leak of the draft opinion in the case signaled the possibility of allowing states to make laws severely restricting or banning access to abortion procedures. A ruling in Dobbs is expected in the coming weeks.
