On the 46th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, reproductive rights activists won a victory Tuesday when an Iowa state judge struck down a 2018 law specifically designed by forced-birther activists to reach the Supreme Court in hopes the justices there now will weaken or overturn that 1973 ruling. The anti-abortion law was one of the strictest in the nation, but not the first of its kind.
In the summary ruling, which was no surprise to most observers, Judge Michael Huppert of the 5th Judicial District of Iowa wrote that a state law banning abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected violates “both the due process and equal protection provisions of the Iowa Constitution.” Huppert ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland and the Iowa City-based Emma Goldman Clinic. Last month, both sides in the case made clear they would appeal if they lost:
“[The] ruling is a victory for every Iowan who has ever needed or will need a safe, legal abortion,” said Dr. Jill Meadows, medical director of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland.
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“I am incredibly disappointed in today’s court ruling because I believe that if death is determined when a heart stops beating, then a beating heart indicates life,” [Republican] Gov. Kim Reynolds said in a statement Tuesday.
The Roe ruling barred states from prohibiting abortion before fetal viability, something physicians place around the 24th week of gestation. Up until eight weeks of gestation, in fact, embryos aren’t yet considered fetuses. In addition, the Supreme Court’s 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey barred states from adding an “undue burden” on women seeking to terminate their pregnancies.
In the past eight years, right-wing activists across the nation have attacked women’s reproductive freedom affirmed under these rulings with literally hundreds of legislative initiatives that generated scores of restrictive new laws, several of which have been overturned by state or federal courts.
