Iowa's 'fetal heartbeat' abortion law to remain blocked, court rules; Kim Reynolds to appeal

An Iowa district court has declined Gov. Kim Reynolds' request to revive a state law banning abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy.

The statute, known as the "fetal heartbeat" law, was signed in 2018 but has never been in effect. It was challenged by Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, the primary abortion provider in Iowa, soon after it was signed. In 2019, a district court permanently enjoined the law as unconstitutional, ruling it violated the Iowa Constitution's due process and equal protection guarantees and was not "narrowly tailored" to serve the state's interest of "promoting potential life."

That ruling tracked with a 2018 Iowa Supreme Court decision that held Iowans had a "fundamental right" to abortion. But in June, the state's highest court, which now has a conservative majority, overturned that 2018 ruling, giving Iowa lawmakers much more leeway to regulate and restrict access to abortions.

After the June ruling, Reynolds asked the original district court to lift the block on the "fetal heartbeat" law. The district court declined on Monday.

“I’m very disappointed in the ruling filed today by the district court, but regardless of the outcome, this case was always going to the Iowa Supreme Court. We will appeal this decision immediately," Reynolds said in a statement Monday evening.

Previously:Iowa Supreme Court says fundamental right to abortion not guaranteed under state constitution

Attorneys for the state had argued in October that the legal standard to which the law was originally held no longer applies. The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, representing Planned Parenthood, argued the law remained unconstitutional even under the standard of the Supreme Court's June ruling.

"The district court’s decision is a huge win for abortion rights and bodily autonomy in Iowa. For now, abortion remains safe and legal in the state, and Iowans will continue to have control over their ability to determine their lives and futures," said Planned Parenthood North Central States President and CEO Ruth Richardson in a statement Monday evening.

On Monday, Democratic state Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, of West Des Moines, said the victory may be short-lived.

“While this is a positive development that will preserve Iowans’ basic rights in the near term, we all know where this is headed: Republicans want to ban abortion — at six weeks or altogether if they can," she said in a statement.

More:Will Iowa abortion laws change after the midterm elections? Here's what to know

Could the district court have revived the abortion law?

Monday's ruling by Judge Celene Gogerty leaves in place the 2019 injunction.

Gogerty wrote that she was not convinced the district court had the authority to dissolve the nearly four-year-old injunction, and that, even if it did, "the state has failed to show that there has been a substantial change in the law under the Iowa Constitution" that would merit revisiting the original ruling.

Gogerty noted that Iowa has no legal process in place to challenge past permanent injunctions, and no authorization to do so under Iowa court rules. Nor was she persuaded by the state's argument that a district court has "inherent authority" to revisit its own prior decisions years after the fact.

From 2019:Iowa 'fetal heartbeat' abortion restriction declared unconstitutional

"There is no caselaw to support, and none has been given by the state, that a permanent injunction being issued based on a finding that a statute was unconstitutional and void at the time it was passed may later be modified or vacated because of the inherent authority of the issuing court to modify or vacate the permanent injunction based on a change in the law," she wrote.

Planned Parenthood argued that attempting to revive the dormant lawsuit over the 2018 law is the wrong procedural vehicle to attempt to change the legal standard for abortion laws. ACLU Legal Director Rita Bettis Austen said the state would need to pass a new law and start the litigation over to complete the attempt to ban abortions.

"If the Legislature were to try to repass this law, that would be deeply unpopular with Iowans. We know that we would do everything we could to stop that," she said. "But that would eliminate the procedural hurdles that they face in trying to go about things the way that they have."

What is the standard for Iowa abortion laws?

The Iowa Supreme Court's 2018 decision held that abortion restrictions must be subject to strict scrutiny, the highest legal standard in constitutional law, making it very difficult for new restrictions to survive challenges in court.

The court's latest decision reversed that holding, but did not overturn a 2015 Supreme Court decision that abortion decisions should be evaluated under an "undue burden" standard. That is an intermediate level of scrutiny focusing on whether a law excessively limited a woman's ability to obtain an abortion. That matched a standard established nationally by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1992.

But a week after the Iowa Supreme Court decision came out, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that precedent in its Dobbs decision, ruling that abortion laws should be subject to rational-basis review, the lowest and most permissive standard for constitutionality challenges.

Even before that national decision, two dissenting justices on the Iowa court wrote that they believed Iowa also should adopt rational-basis review. The Iowa majority opinion signaled the court would be open to further litigation over what standard should apply going forward.

Iowa Poll:Iowa Poll: Most Iowans support legal abortion; court rulings have paved way for more restrictions

Judge: Not my place to decide standard

Even if the district court had authority to revisit the permanent injunction, Gogerty wrote in Monday's order, it does not have the power to overturn the Supreme Court's 2015 decision dictating that courts should use the undue burden standard.

"It is not in the district court where the standard should be further litigated," Gogerty wrote, citing one of the dissenting opinions from the June decision.

The "fetal heartbeat" law, which would ban almost all abortions after cardiac activity is detected, remains an undue burden on women under the standard set by the Iowa Supreme Court in 2015, and thus remains unconstitutional, Gogerty wrote.

But Reynolds, in her statement, said: "As the Iowa and US Supreme Courts have made clear, there is no fundamental right to an abortion. The decision of the people’s representatives to protect life should be honored, and I believe the court will ultimately do so. As long as I’m Governor, I will continue to fight for the sanctity of life and for the unborn."

Abortion demand rises in Iowa, where abortion remains legal

Monday's decision means abortion in the first 20 weeks of a pregnancy remains legal in Iowa. It also remains legal later in a pregnancy if an abortion is needed to save the pregnant person's life. Since the Iowa Supreme Court's June decision, however, another abortion restriction that had been on hold, imposing a mandatory 24-hour waiting period before receiving an abortion, has gone into effect.

Reynolds' pledged to further limit abortion access comes as Planned Parenthood reports rising demand for the procedure. Mazie Stilwell, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood North Central States, said clinics in Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska have seen a 13% increase in patients coming from other states, several of which have enacted near-total abortion bans since the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs decision.

Stilwell said the region has seen a 40% increase in second-trimester abortions, which are more expensive and more likely to result in complications than earlier abortions.

"That is a direct result of the burdens being put on our patients and on our health centers," Stilwell said.

The ACLU estimates that the 2018 "heartbeat" law, if it went into effect, would block about 98% of abortions in Iowa.

William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com, 715-573-8166 or on Twitter at @DMRMorris.