An Iowa governor signed some legislation, recently. The legislation bans almost all abortions within the state of Iowa, by implication.
The legislation states that if a heartbeat is detected, then abortion is not allowed by the physician. This is considered one of the most restrictive moves against reproductive rights.
The rights for women to safe and equitable access to abortion gets restricted. This amounts to the most restrictive ban on abortion in the United States of America.
The security at the Iowa Capitol was strengthened around the signing of the bill. Republican Governor Kim Reynolds had several state troopers outside of their office.
Reynolds stated, “I believe that all innocent life is precious and sacred, and as governor, I pledged to do everything in my power to protect it. That is what I am doing today.”
The law will become enacted on July 1, 2018. The Iowa Senate had a vote that was more or less split, but the bill was approved for the ban of most abortions in the state of Iowa.
The ban requires women to undergo abdominal ultrasounds with physicians for a test of a fetal heartbeat if a woman wants to seek an abortion.
With a detectable heartbeat, the physician can decline the performance of an abortion. Fetal heartbeats can be detected as early as 6 weeks into a pregnancy, according to experts.
Planned Parenthood for the Heartland (PPH) declared they would sue Iowa. The PPH executive officer, Suzanna de Baca, said:
It’s shameful that when Planned Parenthood heard lawmakers were introducing legislation to ban abortion, we were outraged — but we weren’t surprised… But I think many of us still never expected that Governor Reynolds would so swiftly jump to sign a bill that is so clearly unconstitutional.
An Iowa law banned most abortions after 20 weeks last year. Republican Iowa lawmakers are looking to advance legislation to challenge Roe v. Wade.
Roe v. Wade, from 1973, set the early stage for the advancement of women’s rights constitutional protection for the right to an abortion.
Original publication in Medium.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Founder of In-Sight Publishing and In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal.