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In lifting a prior injunction, the majority ruled that “Every ground the State identifies is a legitimate interest for the legislature to pursue, and the restrictions on abortion in the fetal heartbeat statute are rationally related to advancing them.”
The Iowa Supreme Court has lifted an injunction on the state’s ban on most abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detectable.
Iowa first passed a heartbeat law in 2018, but it was blocked by lower courts that claimed it imposed an undue burden on a woman’s right to get an abortion under Roe v. Wade. In 2022, the Iowa Supreme Court found that there was no right to an abortion in the state’s constitution.
One week later, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson overturned the Roe precedent, finding that there is no right to abortion under the U.S. Constitution and allowing states to make their own laws regarding abortion.
In 2023, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds called a special session of the legislature to pass a law for “the sole purpose of enacting legislation that addresses abortion and protects unborn lives.”
The legislature then passed its current heartbeat law, which prohibits an abortion after cardiac activity is detected in the fetus.
The law grants exceptions in the case of rape if the rape was reported to police or a health agency within 45 days or incest if it was reported within 145 days. The law also grants an exception if it is necessary in order to “preserve the life of the pregnant woman whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy.”
Planned Parenthood of the Heartland filed suit, and a district court granted a temporary injunction, which halted enforcement of the law.
Yesterday, the Iowa Supreme Court lifted the injunction.
The majority, which included Justice Matthew McDermott, who authored the ruling, and three other justices, wrote that the district court had used an undue burden test when it should have used a rational basis test. The rational basis test says that government action is only unconstitutional if it has no rational basis for its action.
A rational basis test is used rather than an undue burden test when the right at question is not a fundamental right.
“In determining whether an unenumerated right is fundamental, the alleged right at issue must be objectively ‘deeply rooted’ in our ‘history and tradition’ and ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,’” the court explained.
They further argued,
“A right to an abortion, as the historical record shows, is not rooted at all in our state’s history and tradition, let alone ‘deeply’ rooted. The deep roots that exist show not protection for abortion rights but common law and statutory prohibitions on abortion from the very beginning through modern times.”
The Court rejected Planned Parenthood’s argument that the court could use a more stringent interpretation.
“Subjecting all laws that involve legislative line-drawing—which is virtually all laws—to heightened scrutiny would severely hamstring the legislature’s ability to carry out its role in our democratic process. Our tiers of scrutiny strike a balance between deferring to the legislative process and protecting constitutional rights by holding laws that draw distinctions involving fundamental rights to heightened scrutiny,” the judges ruled.
“‘Our role,’ as we have said, ‘is to decide whether constitutional lines were crossed, not to sit as a superlegislature rethinking policy choices of the elected branches.’”
The Court noted numerous reasons the state gave for passing the law. These included: respect for and preservation of prenatal life at all stages of development; protection of maternal health and safety; elimination of particularly gruesome or barbaric medical procedures; preservation of the integrity of the medical profession; mitigation of fetal pain; and prevention of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or disability.
“Every ground the State identifies is a legitimate interest for the legislature to pursue, and the restrictions on abortion in the fetal heartbeat statute are rationally related to advancing them,” the justices argued.
“As a result, Planned Parenthood’s substantive due process challenge fails. The district court thus erred in granting the temporary injunction.”
The Court remanded the case back to the district court with the order to continue the proceedings.
The injunction will remain in place for about three weeks. Until then, abortion will be permitted for up to 20 weeks’ gestation.
Reynolds praised the ruling in a statement, saying,
“There is no right more sacred than life, and nothing more worthy of our strongest defense than the innocent unborn. Iowa voters have spoken clearly through their elected representatives, both in 2018 when the original heartbeat bill was passed and signed into law, and again in 2023 when it passed by an even larger margin. I’m glad that the Iowa Supreme Court has upheld the will of the people of Iowa.”
Courts that continue to pretend that abortion is a fundamental right under the Constitution are being willfully defiant. The U.S. Supreme Court spoke clearly when it wrote that abortion was never a constitutional right and that the Court had erred in 1973 when it contrived a right through legal contortionism.
No judge or court has the right to deny states the ability to pass legislation that protects unborn life. That is why it is important that Christians and conservatives understand the importance of ballot amendments that ask if voters want abortion to be included in the state constitution. If abortion is protected under the state constitution, it will effectively eliminate a state’s ability to restrict it at any point.
This U.S. Supreme Court has respected state sovereignty and the right of voters to make law through their elected representatives.
Now, thanks to the Iowa Supreme Court’s recognition of this, Iowa’s heartbeat law will soon be implemented so it can begin protecting the lives of babies.
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