Abortion in Iowa
Abortion in Iowa is illegal for physicians after detection of embryonic cardiac-cell activity. Embryonic cardiac-cell activity can be detected from around six weeks after the pregnant woman’s last menstrual period, when many women are not yet aware that they are pregnant. Exceptions for the abortion ban after detected embryonic cardiac-cell activity include some instances of rape, incest, fetal abnormalities and threats to the pregnant woman’s life. However, HF 732, the Iowa Heartbeat Bill, states that the ban does not apply to the pregnant woman, as it says, “This section shall not be construed to impose civil or criminal liability on a woman upon whom an abortion is performed…” This, in effect, means that self-managed abortion is legal throughout pregnancy in Iowa.
Prior to 2024, abortion was legal up to 22 weeks in Iowa. In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which enabled states to ban abortion. In the aftermath of the decision, Republican lawmakers in Iowa enacted a six-week abortion ban in July 2023, which was blocked within days, then later unblocked in July 2024 with the approval of the Iowa Supreme Court.
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.
In 2018, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, Inc., Jill Meadows, M.D., and Emma Goldman Clinic 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.
History
Legislative history
By the end of the 1800s, all states in the Union except Louisiana had therapeutic exceptions in their legislative bans on abortions. 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.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. 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.
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. 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. 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. As of mid-April 2019, state law banned abortion after week 22. 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. 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. 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.
In February 2020, the State Senate passed a constitutional amendment clarifying that there is no right to an abortion in the Iowa constitution. Approval in two consecutive legislative sessions is required for a constitutional amendment to appear on the ballot. The amendment passed the House and Senate in May 2021 but did not pass in the 2023–2024 legislative session.
In July 2023, Governor Kim Reynolds arranged for a special session for the Iowa legislature, which according to Reynolds had "the sole purpose of enacting legislation that addresses abortion and protects unborn lives." During the session on July 11, 2023, a bill to further restrict abortions was passed by the Iowa House 56–34 and the Iowa Senate 32–17. Only Iowa Republican lawmakers supported the bill, with all Iowa Democratic lawmakers who were present at the special session voting against the bill, along with three Iowa Republican lawmakers that voted against. Reynolds signed the bill into state law on July 14, 2023.
The 2023 bill was written to ban abortion upon the detection of embryonic cardiac-cell activity. This can be detected from around six weeks after the woman's last menstrual period, when many women are not yet aware that they are pregnant. State courts blocked the law on July 17, 2023, and lifted the block on July 29, 2024.
Judicial history
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.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 filed a lawsuit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in state court arguing the early abortion ban violated the Iowa State Constitution. On June 1, 2018, Polk County District Court Judge Michael Huppert entered a preliminary injunction which temporarily blocked the law from going into effect. 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. 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." 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.
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." 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.
On June 17, 2022, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution does not protect the right to an abortion. 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". The court's decision is a reversal of its 2018 ruling, where it found that the constitution protects the right to an abortion.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, later in 2022. 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.
In June 2023, the Iowa Supreme Court issued a 3–3 split decision on a proposed six-week abortion ban, leaving a lower court order blocking the law in place. The ban could not be enforced, and abortion remained legal up to 20 weeks in the state.
In July 2023, Judge Joseph Seidlin of Polk County ruled on a lawsuit against the July 2023 legislation that generally restricted abortions to six weeks; Seidlin ruled that based on Iowa Supreme Court precedent, the "undue burden" standard should be applied to this case, and that under this standard, the legislation is "likely" unconstitutional on due process grounds; thus Seidlin ordered the legislation temporarily blocked.
In June 2024, the Iowa Supreme Court, in a 4–3 decision, ruled that the July 2023 legislation that generally restricted abortions to six weeks was not unconstitutional based on the "rational basis" standard because it was "rationally related to the state’s legitimate interest in protecting unborn life The state’s interest in protecting the unborn can be traced to Iowa’s earliest days". Thus, the Iowa Supreme Court instructed for lifting of the block on the July 2023 law.
Clinic history
Between 1982 and 1992, the number of abortion clinics in the state decreased by fourteen, going from 25 in 1982 to eleven in 1992. In 2014, there were twelve abortion clinics in the state. 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.In March 2016, there were 13 Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. 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. In 2023, there were nine Planned Parenthood clinics, but Planned Parenthood announced it would close three of them. In 2025, Planned Parenthood North Central States announced it would close eight clinics, four in Minnesota and four in Iowa, due to federal funding cuts. Consequently, the state was left with only one abortion clinic, and no Planned Parenthood clinics that offered abortion services.