What a 6-Week Abortion Ban in Iowa Means for Residents

The problem with this law is that most women don’t find out that they are pregnant until they are roughly 6-8 weeks pregnant, based on how pregnancies are calculated from the last menstrual cycle date. Here’s how the new change will affect women in the state.

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, the party gained more momentum to implement strict abortion laws in the state. “There is no right more sacred than life,” Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds said in June. “I’m glad that the Iowa Supreme Court has upheld the will of the people of Iowa.”

A total of 14 states have near-total bans at all stages of pregnancy, making life more difficult for women who need to access the procedure for medical reasons.

While Republican voters generally lean closer toward banning abortion altogether, the party is not a monolith. More than 41% of Republicans think abortions should be legal and safely accessible. The numbers have a wider margin for Democrat voters. However, 14% think that abortions should be banned. This discrepancy shows that the issue can traverse party lines.

Several news outlets have pointed out how extreme J.D. Vance is in his views on the big issues Americans care about. When it comes to abortion, he has been an outspoken proponent of overturning Roe v. Wade, along with stating that states should each have their own laws regarding the procedure.

So far, she has already called out the desire to reinstate Roe v. Wade in her few rally speeches.

Providers will follow the law to the letter to ensure that they do not have their medical licenses revoked. Helping women and people in trouble has always been their number one priority.

Thankfully, the U.S. Justice Department has fought for the constitutional right for women and girls to travel to receive medical intervention for the procedure. Although many states have criminalized the action and have attempted to put anyone helping a woman receive an abortion in jail, it hasn’t been federally criminalized.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, Planned Parenthood North Central States, and the Emma Goldman Clinic all filed joint lawsuits in an effort to block the ban. The law lasted for just a few days before a district judge successfully blocked it.

The court decided that there is no constitutional right to an abortion procedure in the state, and the ban will be held. A district court judge said last week that the ban would officially take effect on Monday.

Although cardiac tissue has been partially developed at 6 weeks, and a faint pulse can be heard on an ultra-sound, this doesn’t mean the fetus has a heartbeat. Dr. Saima Aftab, the medical director of the Fetal Care Center at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami, says that the pulse is a group of cells that can become the heart and has the capacity to fire electrical signals but looks nothing like a human heart just yet.

This method will cause some severe problems for abortion providers in Iowa, who say that the law based on cardiac activity is “tricky.” A representative of Planned Parenthood says, “we don’t necessarily have plans to cut people off at a certain gestational age.”