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Iowa court sets Friday meeting at deadline to implement state’s new abortion restrictions
ACLU makes last-ditch legal request for Iowa Supreme Court to rehear case
Jul. 16, 2024 3:34 pm
DES MOINES — The ACLU of Iowa has asked the Iowa Supreme Court to rehear the case against a new state law that will create sweeping restrictions on abortions in a last-ditch attempt to keep the law from going into effect.
The court rarely grants such requests, a legal expert in Iowa says.
In the meantime, a district court judge has scheduled a virtual meeting with attorneys on both sides of the case for Friday.
Neither the court nor attorneys for either side would say what the meeting will be about. But per the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling, the lower court must by Friday dissolve the injunction that was keeping the law from going into effect while the courts considered legal challenges.
The ACLU of Iowa, Planned Parenthood and the Emma Goldman Clinic had challenged a law passed by Republicans during a special session of the Iowa Legislature in 2023 that will ban abortions once cardiac activity can be detected.
Cardiac activity typically can be detected at roughly six weeks of pregnancy, which is often before the parent is aware of the pregnancy.
A district court issued an injunction that blocked the law from going into effect. On June 28, the Iowa Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision ruled the law is constitutional.
From that date, the lower court had 21 days — until Friday — to dissolve the injunction and allow the law to go into effect.
Late last week, the ACLU of Iowa filed a request that the Iowa Supreme Court rehear the case. In its filing, the ACLU argues three points:
- that the court failed to address discrepancies in legal standards of review during the case
- that the court should have allowed the injunction to remain in place even after its ruling to allow the lower court to consider the constitutionality of exceptions to the new restrictions under the law
- and that the court erred in determining the Iowa Constitution does not protect the ability for individuals to exercise “autonomy and dominion over one’s body,” including by choosing to have an abortion.
“On rehearing, this Court should hold that the Iowa Constitution protects a fundamental right to bodily autonomy, which includes the right to make decisions about one’s pregnancy, that undue burden is the appropriate standard, and that the Ban is therefore unconstitutional,” the ACLU of Iowa writes in its request for a rehearing.
Sally Frank, a law professor at Drake University, said it is rare for the court to grant such a request. But she said the right to make such a request is why there is a three-week window before the Supreme Court’s ruling goes into effect.
The meeting with lawyers for both sides, ordered by District Judge Jeffery Farrell, is scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday.
Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com
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