Iowa House passes 6-week abortion ban in special session called by GOP governor

Iowa’s state House passed a bill Tuesday night that would ban most abortions in the state as early as six weeks into pregnancy, acting quickly in the special session ordered by GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds with the sole purpose of restricting the procedure in the state.

The bill now heads to the Senate, where it must earn approval before it can move to Reynold’s desk for her signature.

Senate File 579 prohibits physicians from providing most abortions after early cardiac activity can be detected in a fetus or embryo, commonly as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.

The bill includes exceptions for miscarriages, when the life of the pregnant woman is threatened and fetal abnormalities that would result in the infant’s death. It also includes exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rapes reported within 45 days and incest reported within 140 days.

The state House voted 56-34 largely along party lines to advance the measure following a roughly 12-hour day that saw the measure move through rounds of consideration and debate. Debate in the state Senate continued late into Tuesday night.

The bill would immediately take effect with Reynolds’ expected signature.

However, while the bill language makes clear it is “not to be construed to impose civil or criminal liability on a woman upon whom an abortion is performed in violation of the division,” guidelines on how physicians would be punished for violating the law are left up to Iowa’s board of medicine to decide – leaving the potential for some vagueness in how the law ought to be enforced in the interim.

“There may or may not ever be rules promulgated,” said Iowa Senate President Amy Sinclair, a Republican, amid several questions from Democrats on the floor. There were no legal penalties for physicians added in the bill, she said.