Here’s what to expect during Iowa’s abortion special session

DES MOINES — Iowa lawmakers will meet Tuesday in a special session to consider a bill to severely restrict abortion, making another attempt to enact a law that was blocked by courts in 2018 and remained so after an Iowa Supreme Court decision last month.

Iowa Republicans will consider a similar bill to that so-called “fetal heartbeat” bill that passed in 2018. The new bill, which was introduced on Friday, would ban abortions after cardiac activity is detected in a fetus, with some exceptions.

What’s in the bill?

The proposal was published Friday as companion bills, Senate Study Bill 1223 and House Study Bill 255. While it is not identical to the 2018 bill, it is similar in most ways.

The bill prohibits abortions once a fetal heartbeat — defines as “cardiac activity, the steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart within the gestational sac” — is detected. It includes exceptions for pregnancies that are the result of rape in cases that are reported within 45 days, and incest in cases that are reported within 140 days.

It also includes exceptions for miscarriages, a fetal abnormality that would result in the infant’s death, and for when the mother’s life is threatened.

How to watch or participate in public hearing

Iowa House lawmakers will hold a public hearing at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Iowa State Capitol in Room 103, Supreme Court Chamber, on HSB 255. Speaking time will be limited to two minutes per person and alternate between those in support and those opposed to the legislation. The hearing ends at 11 a.m.

Those signed to speak must be in person at the event. The meeting will be livestreamed via YouTube. The link will be provided 60 minutes before the start of the meeting on the homepage for the Iowa Legislature at legis.iowa.gov.

Those wishing to sign up to speak on the bill can do so at bit.ly/44z8xyF. Check in will start around 9 a.m. Individuals can also leave written testimony or comment at the link above.

Those with questions can contact the Chief Clerk at (515) 281-5383.

What do Republicans say about the bill?

Rep. Megan Jones, a Republican from Sioux Rapids, said lawmakers will give the bill “thoughtful discussion,” but she expects it to pass. Republicans hold large majorities in both chambers.

“A lot of us have already voted for that, we've already debated most of that,” she said. “ … We probably know where everybody's at by this point, and I see it on the governor’s desk by the end of the day.”

Some of Iowa’s most staunch anti-abortion rights legislators said they eventually would prefer a “life at conception” ban that would bar nearly all abortions, but said that a six-week ban was a good start — and a way to test the scrutiny standard at the Iowa Supreme Court level.

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“We have to realize where Iowans are, and I can only go as far as my fellow legislators and Iowans want us to go,” said Rep. Jon Dunwell, a Republican from Jasper who co-sponsored this year a bill to ban abortions from conception. “And so I think this is a great start for us to say, ‘How many babies can we save as soon as possible?’”

Luana Stoltenberg, an anti-abortion rights activist and Republican representative from Davenport, said the move to a total ban should be done incrementally. “So if we can do heartbeat, that would be wonderful, because it’s more babies saved,” she said.

Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley, a Republican from New Hartford, said while Democrats across the country work to protect abortion access, Iowa House Republicans are “unapologetically pro-life.”

“We believe strongly that the 2018 Heartbeat Law was a good piece of legislation that will save many innocent lives,” he said in a statement. “It is past time for the will of Iowans to be heard and for the heartbeat bill with exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother, to be the law of the land in Iowa."

House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl, a Republican from Missouri Valley, also weighed in on the special session.

"Our caucus is eager to get back to Des Moines to continue our fight to protect the lives of unborn children," he said in a statement. "Iowans have elected us on the promise to defend the unborn and we will continue to follow through on that promise. We are a pro-life, pro-family caucus and we will continue to pass additional legislation in future sessions that provide support for new parents and strengthen Iowa families."

What, if anything, can Democrats do?

While they don’t have the votes to stop the bill, Democrats are planning to put up a fight on the debate floor, hoping to illustrate the harm they say an abortion ban would bring to Iowa women and reproductive health care.

Sen. Cindy Winckler, a Democrat from Davenport, said Democrats will try to represent the broad spectrum of Iowans who will be affected by a ban. She said limitations will impact more than just abortion access, affecting reproductive health care and exacerbating Iowa’s OB-GYN shortage.

“We want to assure that families, women have access to healthy babies as well, if that is their choice,” she said. “And for many people that is exactly what it is. They want healthy children, and they want access to health care.”

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Iowa House Democratic Leader Jennifer Konfrst of Windsor Heights said a strong majority of Iowans support reproductive freedom, based on polling. She said House Democrats intend to “put people over politics and fight for the reproductive freedom of every Iowan.”

How long will the special session last?

Lawmakers will gavel in for the special session at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.

In the Senate, this is the schedule drawn up by majority Republicans: Legislators will vote to adopt the rules for the special session at 9:15 a.m. The Senate’s committee work on the bill will begin at 11 a.m., and will conclude no later than 2 p.m. Legislators will then have time to caucus — closed-door discussions held by each party — and floor debate will begin at 4 p.m. Finally, the Senate set a hard deadline to complete debate no later than 11 p.m. At that point, if legislators are still debating, debate will be stopped and legislators will immediately vote on the bill.

In the House, this is the schedule drawn up by majority Republicans: the House committee work will begin on the bill at 9:15 a.m., and the committee will recess for a public hearing at 9:30 a.m. The public hearing is scheduled to last 90 minutes. Each speaker will get two minutes, and they will alternated for and against.

Beyond that, the House had not as of late Friday set rules for limiting debate, according to a House Republican spokeswoman. A House Democrats spokesman said those rules could be set during party caucuses, and he expects a similar deadline to the Senate.

Do they get paid?

Legislators will be paid $175 per day for the special session, and receive daily expense reimbursements of $131.25 for Polk County legislators and $175 for legislators from other counties.

This will be the 24th year with a special session of the Iowa Legislature, according to state records. But it will be just the 10th since 1970, when the Iowa Legislature went from meeting every other year to meeting annually.

Iowa legislators held a one-day special session in 2021 to finish the state’s decennial redrawing of legislative maps. Before that, the most recent special session of the Legislature was in 2006, when lawmakers met to override a gubernatorial veto of eminent domain legislation.

What happens after they pass another abortion ban?

The bill states the law takes effect upon enactment. Opponents likely will ask for a temporary injunction to allow time to prepare for an emergency hearing on a preliminary injunction that the state would likely appeal, said Sally Frank, an abortion law expert and law professor at Drake University.

“The idea that the Legislature will convene and pass a law effective upon the governor’s signature is moving at breakneck speed, and that will put women’s lives at risk,” ACLU of Iowa Policy Director Pete McRoberts said. “When this becomes law, nobody will know what to do. … The idea that within one day the Legislature can show up and the governor sign this bill that night and everything changes from one minute to the next is virtually unheard of in Iowa, with something of such importance to hundreds of thousands of Iowa women and their families. … They deserve better from the governor and the Legislature and it’s beyond irresponsible.”

Iowa Planned Parenthood representatives this week said they plan to challenge in court any abortion restriction that comes out of the special session — teeing up what’s sure to be another protracted legal battle that could take a year or more to resolve.

Frank, the Drake law professor, expects the abortion ban will again be blocked by a district court for creating an undue burden on someone’s access to abortion, inevitably landing back before the Iowa Supreme Court, this time to establish the newly defined level of legal scrutiny that should be applied to abortion regulations in Iowa.

Both the Iowa Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court last summer reversed the fundamental right to an abortion, with the U.S. Supreme Court throwing the issue back to states to decide.

Iowa Supreme Court Justice Edward Mansfield, writing for the court in its 2022 ruling, said while there is no fundamental right to abortion under the Iowa Constitution subject to “strict scrutiny,” for now, the “undue burden” test remains the governing standard.

Abortion rights opponents argue that the current undue burden test should no longer apply, and that a “rational basis” test be used for evaluating abortion restrictions. That effectively would lower the legal bar for abortion restrictions, making it easier for them to survive court challenges.

Frank anticipated that process could take a year for a ruling from the Iowa Supreme Court. Other legal experts estimated it could take longer, potentially until summer 2025.

The question becomes whether Iowa courts will put a stay on the law, or permit the law to go into effect pending a final ruling on the substance, according to legal experts.

The state likely will argue that because the U.S. Supreme Court ruling allows state legislatures to set abortion standards; there shouldn’t be a stay. Opponents likely will argue the law should be stayed because it places an undue burden on someone’s access to abortion and cause irreversible harm to pregnant women, Frank and other legal experts said.

“I would anticipate that a district court judge would say since we don’t know what the standard is yet, we’ll keep the law as it is,” Franks said, and maintain the status quo where abortion remains legal in Iowa until roughly 20 weeks of pregnancy, until the Iowa Supreme Court says otherwise.

Statehouse Republicans also have started the process of amending the Iowa Constitution to say it does not guarantee the right to abortions. Lawmakers have approved the proposed amendment once; they would need to pass it again by 2024 and then put it to a public vote.

How many abortions are performed in Iowa?

In 2021, an estimated 10.2 percent of pregnancies in Iowa ended in abortion. That number does not take into account miscarriages.

There were 3,761 abortions in Iowa in 2021, the most recent year for which numbers were available from the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, compared with 36,786 total births.

That’s down about 7 percent compared with the 4,058 abortions performed in the state in 2020, marking the first time in three years that the annual number has decreased.

The number of Iowa abortions increased from the previous years in both 2019 and 2020, according to state reports, but are less frequent than they were in the mid-2000s, when pregnancy terminations numbered more than 6,000 per year.

What do medical professionals have to say?

Iowa physicians warned Friday such restrictions will hinder their ability to provide medically necessary care, prevent disease, avert emergencies and respond to time-sensitive issues. They noted doctors in other states with strict abortion measures, fearing legal repercussions, are risking grave patient harm to comply, including letting patients’ conditions deteriorate until they threaten the mother’s life.

“We're going to have to justify mothers dying because our governor and our representatives think that’s less important than an early pregnancy,” said Dr. Emily Boevers, an OB-GYN in Waverly, said Friday.

Dr. Francesca Turner, an OB-GYN in Des Moines, said she has “endless stories” from her 20 years of practice “where women need emergency surgery because of miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy or other circumstances.”

They also called the use of the term “fetal heartbeat” misleading.

Some major medical organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, note that what is detected at six weeks is electrical impulses. An actual heartbeat does not occur until roughly 17 to 20 weeks of pregnancy, they say.

Turner said a doctor's ability to detect embryonic cardiac activity varies between pregnancies.

"It could be six to eight weeks. Sometimes you see it a little bit earlier, and sometimes you don't. … It's generally early in pregnancy," Turner said, which often is before an individual is aware they are pregnant.

Abortion rights advocates say such a prohibition would end 98 percent of the now-legal abortions in Iowa.

“Everyone has their own unique situation and story,” Dr. Jill Meadows, former medical director, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, said Friday. “One thing that the vast majority have in common is that they didn't anticipate being in this position at that time in their lives” — whether because contraceptives were ineffective and may have masked pregnancy; or risky complication arose from a wanted pregnancy; or their financial situation or financial situation changed.

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com