Nation's most restrictive abortion law is challenged in Iowa
Source: Associated Press
Barbara Rodriguez, Associated Press
Updated 6:06 pm, Tuesday, May 15, 2018
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A lawsuit challenging the nation's most restrictive abortion law was filed Tuesday in Iowa, a state that for years was largely left out of Republican efforts to overturn abortion protections and where the Democratic attorney general has refused to defend the law.
If allowed to take effect on July 1 as planned, the law would ban most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, around the sixth week of pregnancy. Abortion-rights groups say that's a time when many women do not know they are pregnant.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America announced the filing of the complaint in Polk County District Court in Des Moines. The lawsuit argues that the law violates the Iowa Constitution by banning nearly all abortions and putting women's health at risk. It seeks an injunction to halt the law's implementation. Litigation could take years.
Until the 2016 election, Iowa had little to no role in the broad GOP effort to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that established a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy until a fetus is viable.
Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Nation-s-most-restrictive-abortion-law-is-12916289.php
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