DES MOINES: An Iowa ban on most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy was signed into law on Friday, forcing clinics to scramble to arrange out-of-state care for many women whose access immediately ended as a judge considered whether to temporarily put a hold on the law.
A court hearing took place on Friday, but the judge said his ruling on whether to halt the new law as the courts assess its constitutionality would likely not come until Monday at the earliest.
Barely a mile away, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed the measure into law in front of 2,000 conservative Christians.
The new legislation prohibits almost all abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, which is usually around six weeks of pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant. That’s a dramatic shift for women in Iowa, where abortion had been legal up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.
The ACLU of Iowa, Planned Parenthood North Central States and the Emma Goldman Clinic filed the legal challenge on Wednesday and representatives spoke at the court hearing Friday.
After the hearing, District Court Judge Joseph Seidlin said he could not imagine “anything that would be more insulting to either side” than for him to “flippantly” rule from the Bench on Friday.
The split screen between Reynolds’ signing and the court hearing punctuates a bitter battle between abortion advocates and opponents in Iowa that has dragged on for years and will likely, for now, remain unresolved.
“As we gather here today, at this very moment, the abortion industry is in the court trying to prevent this law from taking effect and stop once again the will of the people,” Reynolds said, before bringing lawmakers and others to the stage to sign the law. “But the passage of this legislation by even a wider margin this times sends an unmistakable message.”