Less than a month after a deadlocked Iowa Supreme Court left a six-week abortion ban unenforceable, lawmakers were set to return to the State Capitol on Tuesday morning to consider a nearly identical set of restrictions on the procedure.
With large Republican majorities in both legislative chambers and a Republican governor who has decried “the inhumanity of abortion,” the new restrictions seemed very likely to pass.
“I believe the pro-life movement is the most important human rights cause of our time,” Gov. Kim Reynolds said last week when she called the special session on abortion. She also lamented the court’s deadlock, saying the “lack of action disregards the will of Iowa voters and lawmakers who will not rest until the unborn are protected by law.”
The session was expected to further cement Iowa’s sharp political shift to the right and end its increasingly rare status as a Republican-led state where abortions are allowed up to 20 weeks of pregnancy. The new limits would add Iowa to a list of conservative states, which includes Indiana, North Dakota and South Carolina, that have passed abortion restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court ended the national right to abortion last year.
