'Devastated:' A six-week abortion ban will go into effect in Iowa next week

A six-week abortion ban will soon go into effect in Iowa after the state Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the law.

House File 732 bans abortions after the detection of cardiac activity, typically around six weeks, before most people learn they are pregnant. Though commonly referred to as a "heartbeat bill," medical experts have long maintained that it is not possible for an embryo to produce a heartbeat at six weeks, as the heart has not yet begun to form, and that the pulses detected in ultrasounds at that stage are instead electric activity.

Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the bill into law in 2023, leading to a lower court issuing an injunction preventing it from being enforced. The state Supreme Court ruled in June that the Iowa constitutional does not solidify the right to an abortion, and ordered the injunction be repealed.

Abortion and advocacy organizations shortly filed an appeal with the Iowa Supreme Court, asking it to reconsider the case. The court has since declined to review it, ruling in a 4-3 decision Monday that it will not take up the case again. The law is expected to go into effect next week.

Judge Jeffrey Farrell indicated that he would give abortion providers a few days notice before reversing the injunction next week. Health care practitioners in the state, where abortion was previously legal up to 20 weeks, decried the ruling as a decision that "will push abortion care almost entirely out of reach in Iowa."

"We are devastated that the Iowa Supreme Court has denied our petition for rehearing. The Court has sent this case back to the district court, and we now await the district court’s order allowing the abortion ban to go into effect," Planned Parenthood, Emma Goldman Clinic, and the ACLU of Iowa said in a joint statement.

"Iowans should be free to make their own decisions about their own lives, bodies, and futures without interference from politicians or judges – they know what is best for them. ... We will keep fighting to ensure every Iowan has access to the sexual and reproductive health care they deserve.”