DES MOINES, Iowa (CN) — Lawyers representing Planned Parenthood of the Heartland urged an Iowa trial judge on Friday to block enforcement of a six-week abortion ban passed by state lawmakers and signed into law by Governor Kim Reynolds this week. The law became effective immediately.
Lawyers for the state argued the law is constitutional and should not be enjoined.
The new statute bans abortions at the point in a pregnancy when an ultrasound test can detect cardiac activity in an embryo, which can be as soon as six weeks after a woman’s last menstrual period.
Planned Parenthood of the Heartland filed suit in Polk County Friday along with the Emma Goldman Clinic and Planned Parenthood Medical Director, Dr. Sarah Traxler. The abortion providers claim the so-called fetal heartbeat law violates the Iowa Constitution.
The Planned Parenthood suit sought temporary and permanent injunctions. Planned Parenthood lawyer Peter Im urged Polk County District Judge Joseph Seidlin to rule from the bench following Friday’s hearing, but the judge said he would not issue a ruling before Monday.
Im, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney for Planned Parenthood Federation of America told Judge Seidlin that Iowa’s six-week abortion statute would ban the vast majority of abortions in the state based on the plaintiff clinics’ experience. That forces a woman seeking an abortion to travel out of state, self-induce an abortion outside of the medical profession, or carry an unwanted child to full term.
Iowa’s six-week ban “unquestionably” poses an undue burden on women seeking abortions, Im said. “Therefore, it is unconstitutional. Full stop.”
Assistant state Attorney General Daniel Johnston, in response, faulted the plaintiffs for focusing only on how the law might create hardships for women and abortion providers without “consideration for unborn life,” which motivated the Iowa Legislature to enact the abortion ban through a democratic process.
A critical point on which the parties disagreed is the standard the court should use in assessing the constitutionality of the statute.
Im argued the Iowa Supreme Court has previously applied the same “undue burden” test as originally articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1992, and that remains the prevailing standard in Iowa based on the Iowa Constitution.
Johnston said the U.S. Supreme Court adopted a more lenient “rational basis” test when it overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, and that is the standard that should be applied to the case before the Polk County District Court now because the Iowa Supreme Court has read the federal and state constitutions as being “coextensive” on the proper standard.
The bill passed Tuesday is nearly identical to a bill passed in 2018 that was enjoined by a state judge. The Iowa Supreme Court deadlocked last month when considering whether to lift the injunction.
While three members of the state’s seven-member high court wrote on June 16 that they would leave the injunction in place, three other justices disagreed, saying they would have lifted it. A seventh justice recused herself.
Because there was no controlling decision, the injunction remains in place. The so-called fetal heartbeat bill from 2018 could not be enforced, and Iowa’s existing abortion law, which allows for abortions up to the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, remained on the books until the new law was signed by the governor this week.
Wednesday’s Planned Parenthood complaint argues that banning abortions in the earliest stages of pregnancy will impose an undue burden on the plaintiffs’ patients.
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