Abortion in Iowa is legal up to 20 weeks of gestation. A 6-week abortion ban has been indefinitely blocked in court. [1]
Over recent decades, the number of abortion clinics in Iowa has generally decreased, and state legislators have regularly introduced bills to severely restrict abortion. Public opinion in Iowa remains about evenly split on whether abortion should be legal.
In 2017, Iowa rejected millions of dollars in federal funding for Medicaid as part of their efforts to try to defund Planned Parenthood and its abortion services in the state. In 2020, it was reported that abortions in Iowa went up for the first time in decades—25 percent—with the loss of that federal aid attributed to the increase. [2]
In 2018, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, Inc., Jill Meadows, M.D., and Emma Goldman Clinic (petitioners) filed a lawsuit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in state court, arguing the early abortion ban violated the Iowa State Constitution. Courts supported their injunction request, saying the law violated the state's constitution. [3] A #StoptheBans protest occurred at the Statehouse in Des Moines on May 21, 2019.
In February 2020, the State Senate passed a constitutional amendment clarifying that there is no right to an abortion in the Iowa constitution. The amendment must pass the House, the legislature again in 2022, and a statewide vote before it becomes law. [4] The statewide vote would happen in 2024 at the earliest. [5]
In June 2023, the Iowa Supreme Court issued a split decision (3–3) regarding a proposed 6-week abortion ban, meaning that the decision of a lower court not to enforce the ban was upheld; abortion remains legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks. [6]
By the end of the 1800s, all states in the Union except Louisiana had therapeutic exceptions in their legislative bans on abortions. [7] In the 19th century, bans by state legislatures on abortion were partly about protecting the life of the mother given the number of deaths caused by abortions; state governments saw themselves as looking out for the lives of their citizens. [7] Bans were also seen as protecting the life of the fetus or embryo, with abortion often being equated with infanticide.[ citation needed ]
In 2012, Iowa was one of three states where the legislature introduced a bill that would have banned abortion in almost all cases. It did not pass. [8] The legislature tried and failed again in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, where they were one of five states, one of three states, one of five states, one of four states, one of eleven states, and one of eleven states respectively trying to ban abortion. [8]
In 2017 in Iowa, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a bill that rejected millions of dollars in federal funding for Medicaid as part of their efforts to try to defund Planned Parenthood and its abortion services in the state. [9] The state legislature was one of ten states nationwide that tried to unsuccessfully pass an early abortion ban in 2018. Only Iowa successfully passed such a bill, but it was struck down by the courts. [8] The legislature had successfully passed a law moving the state's abortion ban to 6 weeks sometime between 2018 and 2019. This was struck down by the courts as too extreme. [8] As of mid-April 2019, state law banned abortion after week 22. [8] On May 4, 2018, governor Kim Reynolds signed into law a bill that would ban abortion in Iowa after embryonic cardiac activity is detected, starting July 1, 2018. [10] On January 22, 2019, a county district judge declared the law to be in violation of Iowa's State Constitution and entered a permanent injunction prohibiting its enforcement. [11] In 2019, women in Iowa were eligible for pregnancy accommodation and pregnancy-related disability as a result of legal abortion or miscarriage. Employers were required to offer up to eight weeks of unpaid leave if a woman did not have sufficient leave available. [12]
On July 14, 2023, Governor Kim Reynolds signed a bill to ban abortion after about six weeks of gestation. [13] The state legislature had passed it several days earlier. The vote was 56–34 in the House and 32–17 in the Senate. [14] The 6-week ban was challenged in court and was indefinitely blocked by a district court judge on July 17. [15]
The US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester. [7]
On May 15, 2018, eleven days after Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed SF 359 into law, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, Inc., Jill Meadows, M.D., and Emma Goldman Clinic (petitioners) filed a lawsuit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in state court arguing the early abortion ban violated the Iowa State Constitution. [16] [17] [18] On June 1, 2018, Polk County District Court Judge Michael Huppert entered a preliminary injunction which temporarily blocked the law from going into effect. [19] On January 22, 2019, the county district judge declared the law to be in violation of the Iowa Constitution and entered a permanent injunction prohibiting its enforcement. [11] In holding the law unconstitutional the judge cited the Iowa Supreme Court's 2018 ruling in a challenge to a different abortion restriction in which the state's court of last resort held that "a woman's right to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy is a fundamental right under the Iowa Constitution." [20] Anti-abortion proponents said they hoped this litigation created a pathway for Roe v. Wade to be reexamined by the U.S. Supreme Court, but University of Iowa law professor Paul Gowder and other legal experts said that it was almost impossible that it could end up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, as the U.S. Supreme Court does not review Supreme Court decisions concerning state constitutional questions. [21]
Anti-abortion legislators have filed legislation to amend the state constitution to state, "that the Constitution of the State of Iowa does not secure or protect a right to or require the funding of abortion." [22] The resolutions proposing to amend Iowa's constitutions are SJR 9 and HJR 5 which were filed on January 24, 2019, and February 6, 2019, respectively. [23] [24]
On June 17, 2022, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution does not protect the right to an abortion. [25] Justice Edward Mansfield wrote in the majority that "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". [25] The court's decision is a reversal of its 2018 ruling, where it found that the constitution protects the right to an abortion. [25]
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization , No. 19-1392 , 597 U.S. ___(2022) later in 2022. [26] [27] Iowa instituted a 24-hour waiting period for abortions, and clinics lost staff, leading to a 13% decrease in legal abortions in Iowa within a year of the U.S. Supreme Court decision. [28]
In June 2023, the Iowa Supreme Court issued a split decision (3-3) regarding a proposed 6-week abortion ban, meaning that the decision of a lower court not to enforce the ban was upheld; abortion remains legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks. [29]
Between 1982 and 1992, the number of abortion clinics in the state decreased by fourteen, going from 25 in 1982 to eleven in 1992. [30] In 2014, there were twelve abortion clinics in the state. [31] In 2014, 89% of the counties in the state did not have an abortion clinic. That year, 42% of women in the state aged 15–44 lived in a county without an abortion clinic. [32]
In March 2016, there were 13 Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. [33] In 2017, there were eight Planned Parenthood clinics in a state with a population of 680,659 women aged 15–49 of which five offered abortion services. [9] In 2023, there were nine Planned Parenthood clinics, but Planned Parenthood said it would close three of them. [28]
On March 26, 2020, Governor Kim Reynolds expanded upon previous COVID-19 disaster proclamations to halt elective and non-essential surgeries. [34] The following day her office asserted: "[The] Proclamation suspends all nonessential or elective surgeries and procedures until April 16th, that includes surgical abortion procedures". [35]
In the period between 1972 and 1974, there were no recorded illegal abortion deaths in the state. [36] In 1990, 302,000 women in the state faced the risk of an unintended pregnancy. [30] In 2001, Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin did not provide any residence related data regarding abortions performed in the state to the Centers for Disease Control. [37]
In 2017, the state had an infant mortality rate of 5.3 deaths per 1,000 live births. [38] In 2010, the state had 23 publicly funded abortions, of which were three federally and twenty were state funded. [39] In 2013, among white women aged 15–19, there were 380 abortions, 60 abortions for black women aged 15–19, 0 abortions for Hispanic women aged 15–19, and 60 abortions for women of all other races. [40]
Census division and state | Number | Rate | % change 1992–1996 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1992 | 1995 | 1996 | 1992 | 1995 | 1996 | ||
West North Central | 57,340 | 48,530 | 48,660 | 14.3 | 11.9 | 11.9 | –16 |
Iowa | 6,970 | 6,040 | 5,780 | 11.4 | 9.8 | 9.4 | –17 |
Kansas | 12,570 | 10,310 | 10,630 | 22.4 | 18.3 | 18.9 | –16 |
Minnesota | 16,180 | 14,910 | 14,660 | 15.6 | 14.2 | 13.9 | –11 |
Missouri | 13,510 | 10,540 | 10,810 | 11.6 | 8.9 | 9.1 | –21 |
Nebraska | 5,580 | 4,360 | 4,460 | 15.7 | 12.1 | 12.3 | –22 |
North Dakota | 1,490 | 1,330 | 1,290 | 10.7 | 9.6 | 9.4 | –13 |
South Dakota | 1,040 | 1,040 | 1,030 | 6.8 | 6.6 | 6.5 | –4 |
Location | Residence | Occurrence | % obtained by out-of-state residents | Year | Ref | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
No. | Rate^ | Ratio^^ | No. | Rate^ | Ratio^^ | ||||
Iowa | 3,766 | 6.4 | 95 | 4,020 | 6.9 | 101 | 13.8 | 2014 | [42] |
Iowa | 3,467 | 5.9 | 88 | 3,722 | 6.3 | 94 | 15.2 | 2016 | [43] |
^number of abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44; ^^number of abortions per 1,000 live births | |||||||||
In 2014, opinion was about evenly split. 52% of Iowa adults said abortion should be legal, while 46% said it should be illegal in all or most cases, according to a Pew Research Center poll. [44]
In a March 2020 poll by Selzer & Co, 48% of Iowans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases while 45% believe it should be illegal in all or most cases. [45]
In a September 2021 poll by Selzer & Co, 57% of Iowans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases while 39% believe it should be illegal in all or most cases. [46]
Women from the state participated in marches supporting abortion rights as part of a #StoptheBans movement in May 2019. [47] [48] One protest occurred at the Statehouse in Des Moines, Iowa on May 21, 2019. [49]
Following the overturn of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, Iowa saw protests in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. [50] [51] During a protest in Cedar Rapids near the U.S. District Court Federal Court House, a truck ran over a woman's foot. The driver of the truck was later arrested and charged with assault. [52] On July 22, an anti-abortion rights man was arrested after assaulting a group of abortion rights protesters in McGregor. [53]
In Des Moines, Iowa on July 11–12, 2023, a crowd of abortion rights protesters rallied as the Iowa state legislature passed a 6-week abortion ban, just weeks after a similar ban was struck down by the Iowa Supreme Court. Several abortion rights protesters were escorted out of the gallery by police after heckling the legislature. [54]
In Des Moines, Iowa on April 11, 2024, an abortion rights protest was held outside the state courthouse while the Iowa Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a proposed 6-week abortion ban. [55]
The Marriage Vow or "The Marriage Vow - A Declaration of Dependence Upon Marriage and Family" is a political pledge created by Bob Vander Plaats, a former candidate for Iowa governor, and the Iowa-based conservative group; The Family Leader, a public advocacy organization affiliated with the Iowa Family Policy Center, that he heads. [56] The 2 most notable signatures came from Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann. Rick Santorum was the first presidential candidate to contact The Family Leader after the organization publicly announced the pledge. Michele Bachmann also contacted The Family Leader to sign the pledge, and became the first Candidate to send her signed document to the organization. [57] Although Newt Gingrich did not sign the pledge, he wrote a lengthy letter in which he upheld many of the principles of the pledge including personal fidelity to his wife, respecting the marital bonds of others, enforcing the defense of marriage act, to support a federal marriage amendment, and to oppose any definition of marriage outside of "one man and one woman." [58] The pledge was also signed by former Texas governor Rick Perry. [59]
On September 11, 2006, David McMenemy of Rochester Hills, Michigan, crashed his car into the Edgerton Women's Care Center in Davenport, Iowa. He then doused the lobby in gasoline and started a fire. McMenemy committed these acts in the belief that the center was performing abortions; however, Edgerton is not an abortion clinic. [60] Time magazine listed the incident in a "Top 10 Inept Terrorist Plots" list. [61]
The legality of abortion in the United States and the various restrictions imposed on the procedure vary significantly depending on the laws of each state or other jurisdiction. Some states prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy with few exceptions, others permit it up to a certain point in a woman's pregnancy, while others allow abortion throughout a woman's pregnancy. In states where abortion is legal, several classes of restrictions on the procedure may exist, such as parental consent or notification laws, requirements that patients be shown an ultrasound before obtaining an abortion, mandatory waiting periods, and counseling requirements.
A six-week abortion ban, also called a "fetal heartbeat bill" by proponents, is a law in the United States which makes abortion illegal as early as six weeks gestational age, which is when proponents claim that a "fetal heartbeat" can be detected. Medical and reproductive health experts, including the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, say that the reference to a fetal heartbeat is medically inaccurate and misleading because a conceptus is not called a fetus until eight weeks after fertilization, as well as that at four weeks after fertilization, the embryo has no heart, only a group of cells which will become a heart. Medical professionals advise that a true fetal heartbeat cannot be detected until around 17 to 20 weeks of gestation when the chambers of the heart have become sufficiently developed.
Abortion in Oklahoma is illegal unless the abortion is necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman.
Abortion in Alabama is illegal. Historically, Alabama's abortion laws have evolved from strict regulations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to a period of liberalization following the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide. However, Alabama has consistently enacted legislation aimed at restricting access to abortion.
Abortion in Georgia is legal up to the detection of an embryonic heartbeat, which typically begins in the 5th or 6th week after the onset of the last menstrual period (LMP) or in two to three weeks after implantation. This law came into force on July 20, 2022, almost a month after the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, No. 19-1392, 597 U.S. ___ (2022) ruling. In 2007, mandatory ultrasound requirements were passed by state legislators. Georgia has continually sought to legislate against abortion at a state level since 2011. The most recent example, 2019's HB 481, sought to make abortion illegal as soon as an embryonic heartbeat can be detected; in most cases that is around the six-week mark of a pregnancy. Many women are not aware they are pregnant at this time. An injunction was issued against this bill by a federal judge, who ruled that it contravened the Supreme Court's 1973 ruling. A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2014 found that 49% of Georgians believed abortions should be illegal in all or most cases vs 48% legal in all or most cases.
As of 2022, abortion in Missouri is illegal, with abortions only being legal in cases of medical emergency and several additional laws making access to abortion services difficult. In 2014, a poll by the Pew Research Center found that 52% of Missouri adults said that abortion should be legal vs. 46% that believe it should be illegal in all or most cases. According to a 2014 Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) study, 51% of white women in the state believed that abortion is legal in all or most cases.
Abortion in Arkansas is illegal except when it is necessary to save the life of the mother. Doctors determined to have performed an abortion face up to 10 years in prison and fines up to $100,000.
Abortion in Delaware is legal up to the point of fetal viability. 55% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal and 38% stated it should be illegal in all or most cases. There was a therapeutic exceptions in the state's legislative ban on abortions by 1900. Informed consent laws were on the books by 2007. In 2017, Senator Bryan Townsend, D-Newark introduced legislation to try to make clear that abortion would remain legal in the state in case 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling was overturned. The legislation was subsequently updated. Attempts have been made to introduce mandatory ultrasound laws, but they failed to get out of committee. State legislators tried to move ahead the week at which a woman could get a legal abortion in 2019.
As of 2024, abortion is currently illegal in Indiana. It's only legal in cases involving fatal fetal abnormalities, to preserve the life and physical health of the mother, and in cases of rape or incest up to 10 weeks of pregnancy. Previously abortion in Indiana was legal up to 20 weeks; a near-total ban that was scheduled to take effect on August 1 was placed on hold due to further legal challenges, but is set to take place, after the Indiana Supreme Court denied an appeal by the ACLU, and once it certifies a previous ruling, that an abortion ban doesn't violate the state constitution. In the wake of the 2022 Dobbs Supreme Court ruling, abortion in Indiana remained legal despite Indiana lawmakers voting in favor of a near-total abortion ban on August 5, 2022. Governor Eric Holcomb signed this bill into law the same day. The new law became effective on September 15, 2022. But on September 22, 2022, Special Judge Kelsey B. Hanlon of the Monroe County Circuit Court granted a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the ban. Her ruling allows the state's previous abortion law, which allows abortions up to 20 weeks after fertilization with exceptions for rape and incest, to remain in effect.
Abortion in Kansas is legal. Kansas law allows for an abortion up to 20 weeks postfertilization. After that point, only in cases of life or severely compromised physical health may an abortion be performed, with this limit set on the belief that a fetus can feel pain after that point in the pregnancy. The state also had detailed abortion-specific informed consent requirement by 2007. Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law applied to medication-induced abortions and private doctor offices in addition to abortion clinics were in place by 2013. In 2015, Kansas became the first state to ban the dilation and evacuation procedure, a common second-trimester abortion procedure. State laws about abortion have been challenged at the Kansas Supreme Court and US Supreme Court level. On August 2, 2022, Kansas voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have allowed the Republican-controlled legislature to restrict or ban abortion in Kansas, following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Abortion in Kentucky is illegal. There were laws in Kentucky about abortion by 1900, including ones with therapeutic exceptions. In 1998, the state passed legislation that required clinics to have an abortion clinic license if they wanted to operate. By the early 2010s, members of the Kentucky Legislature attempted to ban abortion in almost all cases and had also introduced the early abortion bans. Prior to 2019, Kentucky law prohibited abortions after week 22. This changed when the state legislature passed a law that moved the prohibition to week 6 in the early part of the year. In that year, 57% of people in Kentucky said abortion should be "illegal in all or most cases." A bill passed and made effective in April 2022 lowered the threshold to 15 weeks, the second most restrictive limit in effect in the United States behind Texas, and introduced regulations that made abortion illegal until it was blocked in federal court.
Abortion in Michigan is legal throughout all stages of pregnancy. A state constitutional amendment to explicitly guarantee abortion rights was placed on the ballot in 2022 as Michigan Proposal 22–3; it passed with 57 percent of the vote, adding the right to abortion and contraceptive use to the Michigan Constitution. The amendment largely prevents the regulation of abortion before fetal viability, unless said regulations are to protect the individual seeking an abortion, and it also makes it unconstitutional to make laws restricting abortions which would protect the life and health, physical and/or mental, of the pregnant individual seeking abortion.
Abortion in Minnesota is legal at all stages of pregnancy. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled the Minnesota Constitution conferred a right to an abortion in 1995 and the DFL-led Minnesota Legislature passed and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed into law a bill in 2023 to recognize a right to reproductive freedom and preventing local units of government from limiting that right, making Minnesota the first state in the nation in the post-Roe era to ensure residents have a legal right to an abortion.
Abortion in Mississippi is illegal. The new law took effect on July 7, 2022, after Mississippi State Attorney General Lynn Fitch certified on June 27, the Supreme Court decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization on June 24 of that year. State Attorney General Lynn Fitch's certification made Mississippi's 2007 'trigger law' go into effect and ban all abortions in the state, “except in the case where necessary for the preservation of the mother's life or where the pregnancy was caused by rape".
Abortion in North Dakota is illegal. The state's sole abortion clinic relocated to Minnesota.
Abortion in Ohio is legal on request up to the point of fetal viability. After viability, abortion is legal if, in the professional judgement of an attending physician, the abortion is necessary to protect the pregnant individual’s life or health.
Abortion in South Carolina is legal up to when an embryonic heartbeat can be detected, usually around 6 weeks gestation. On May 25, 2023, Governor Henry McMaster signed a 6-week ban, and it took effect immediately. The ban was indefinitely blocked in court on May 26, and reinstated by the South Carolina Supreme Court on August 23.
Abortion in Tennessee is illegal from fertilization, except to "prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman".
Abortion in Florida is currently legal up until a gestational age of 15 weeks, whilst an embryonic heartbeat ban set to take effect on May 1, 2024 restricts abortion after a gestational age of 6 weeks after the woman's last menstrual period. Both pieces of legislation were signed by Governor Ron DeSantis.
Abortion in Wyoming is currently legal due to a temporary court injunction.
The lawsuit is being filed by the ACLU of Iowa and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America as co-counsel on behalf of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland and Dr Jill Meadows. The Emma Goldman Clinic of Iowa City is also a co-plaintiff in the case.
In his decision striking down the abortion law, Polk County District Judge Michael Huppert cited the Iowa Supreme Court's ruling last year in a challenge to a different abortion-restriction law. The high court held that "a woman's right to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy is a fundamental right under the Iowa Constitution" in that ruling.
A Joint Resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the State of Iowa that the Constitution of the State of Iowa does not secure or protect a right to or require the funding of abortion.
Introduced: on January 24, 2019
Introduced: on February 6, 2019
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