Iowa Fetal Heartbeat Law Challenged; AG Won’t Defend State

DES MOINES, IA — Iowa’s Democratic attorney general said Tuesday he won’t defend the state in legal challenges to the most restrictive abortion law in the country. Both the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America have filed challenges to the new law, which bans most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected. That's usually around six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know they're pregnant, abortion rights advocates say.

The decision by Attorney General Tom Miller, who said the measure “would undermine rights and protections for women,” won’t immediately cost taxpayers more. The Thomas More Society, a conservative Chicago-based law firm, has agreed to defend the state for free, The Associated Press reported.

The lawsuit puts Iowa at the center of a nationwide abortion rights debate that abortion foes hope will end with a legal challenge to Roe v. Wade, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion in all 50 states.

In the short term, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood are asking a Polk County District Court judge to issue an injunction that would put the July 1 implementation of the fetal heartbeat bill on hold until the case can be decided. That could take years.

“We’ve moved quickly to challenge this cruel and reckless law because it cannot be allowed to take effect,” Rita Bettis, legal director for the ACLU of Iowa, told reporters at a news conference.

Other plaintiffs include Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, the affiliate’s medical director and the Emma Goldman Clinic in Iowa City.

Here’s How Legal Abortion Became Illegal In Iowa

The legal documents won’t be made public until filed and stamped official copies are available, which could happen later Tuesday or Wednesday, the abortion-rights groups said. Gov. Kim Reynolds, who acknowledged the law would likely be challenged when she signed it earlier this month, and the Iowa Board of Medicine are named as defendants.

Reynolds said at a public event in Davenport that she feels “very confident” the law will survive a constitutional challenge. However, similar laws in North Dakota and Arkansas have been struck down by appeals courts that ruled they were unconstitutional. Lawmakers in Mississippi passed and the governor signed a 15-week abortion ban earlier this year, but implementation was put on hold after a court challenge.

In 2016, Ohio Gov. John Kasich vetoed a fetal heartbeat law, citing its constitutional problems, but signed a less-restrictive 20-week abortion ban.

Republicans who pushed the new fetal heartbeat law through the Iowa statehouse welcome the lawsuit. It was part of a deliberate strategy to get a case before Supreme Court, which so far has refused to hear appeals of the lower court rulings striking down the North Dakota and Arkansas law. However, abortion foes are optimistic that as President Trump appoints more conservative federal judges, a case could make its way to the Supreme Court.

"We at the state legislatures, especially Republican-controlled legislatures, have a responsibility to kind of reload," state Sen.Rick Bertrand, a Republican from Sioux City, told The New York Times. "We need to create vehicles that will allow the Supreme Court possibly to reach back and take this case, and to take up an anti-abortion case."

In the 2016 election, Republicans gained control of the Legislature and the governor’s office for the first time in nearly 20 years and have since been making their conservative presence known. The state approved a 20-week abortion ban in 2017 that required women to wait three days after requesting an abortion to have the procedure done. That provision is on hold as another lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Iowa and Planned Parenthood wends through the courts.

Also this year, Iowa Republicans added language to a budget bill that diverts about $130,000 in federal Community Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention funding away from Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, which provides the bulk of the abortions in the state. That comes a year after the state gave up millions of federal dollars and banned family planning grants to abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood.

Photo of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds by Scott Olson/Getty Images