President Joe Biden criticized the Iowa abortion law that the state’s Supreme Court upheld in a decision on June 28. The president said the strict law puts women’s health and lives in “jeopardy.”
The Iowa Supreme Court’s decision, handed down on Friday, orders a lower court to dissolve an injunction blocking the law. The law implements a six-week abortion ban once a fetal heartbeat is detected, with exceptions for cases of rape, incest, and threats to the mother’s life.
President Biden called the law “extreme and dangerous.” He went on to decry the proliferation of state-level restrictions, including access to in-vitro fertilization treatments and contraception, since the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
“This should never happen in America. Yet, this is exactly what is happening in states across the country since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade,” President Biden said in a written statement released by the White House.
“We conclude that the fetal heartbeat statute is rationally related to the state’s legitimate interest in protecting unborn life,” he wrote.
Lawyers for Iowa argued that the state has a “vital interest in protecting unborn human life at all stages of development.”
They argued that an injunction imposed by Polk County District Court Judge Joseph Seidlin, which stops enforcement of the law, undermines that interest, “ignores recent developments in state and federal law, and misapplies this court’s recent abortion precedents.”
The majority of the Iowa Supreme Court agreed.
His opinion said that abortion is not a fundamental right under the state’s constitution, and therefore, state officials only have to show a rational basis for the statute.
Justice McDermott noted that the state has said the law was aimed at respecting and preserving prenatal life, maternal health and safety, and eliminating “particularly gruesome or barbaric medical procedures.”
Dissenting Opinion, Law
District Court Judge Seidlin had issued an injunction, finding that abortion is a fundamental right in Iowa. He had found that the law would deter women from obtaining abortions and was likely to succeed in proving to be unconstitutional.This decision was then appealed by state officials, who argued that abortion was not a fundamental right in Iowa under a 2022 state Supreme Court decision.
“The state of Iowa has a vital interest in protecting unborn human life at all stages of development. The injunction precluding enforcement of Iowa’s Fetal Heartbeat Statute undermines that interest, ignores recent developments in state and federal law, and misapplies this court’s recent abortion precedents,” state lawyers told the Iowa Supreme Court.
Dissenting from the majority decision on Friday, Chief Justice Susan Christensen criticized the majority opinion as ignoring advancements in women’s rights. She said that the decision did not interpret the Iowa Constitution “through a modern lens.”
“It is painfully apparent to me that the majority misapprehends the nature of the liberty at issue here,” she wrote. “It is not whether abortion, with the polarizing reactions it evokes, is a fundamental right but rather whether individuals have the fundamental right to make medical decisions affecting their health and bodily integrity in partnership with their healthcare provider free from government interference.”
The legislation, enacted during a 2023 special session called by Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, faced immediate legal challenges from groups like Planned Parenthood.
Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, expressed disappointment with the court’s decision, foreseeing significant barriers to abortion care for many Iowans.
In response to the ruling, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris reiterated their commitment to abortion access rights, urging Congress to enact federal laws to that end.
“Vice President Harris and I believe that women in every state must have the right to make deeply personal decisions about their health,” he said, pledging to battle against efforts to the contrary.
