Newest attack on Roe v. Wade shows abortion opponents are done being subtle

Last Friday, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) gave both middle fingers to the Supreme Court of the United States.

A new law, signed by Reynolds, effectively bans abortions around the sixth week of pregnancy — before many people are even aware that they are pregnant. It’s a cartoonish attack on the right to choose, the kind of legislation by blunderbuss that rarely ends well for policymakers.


As recently as 2016, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that states may not enact a law restricting abortion “if the ‘purpose or effect’ of the provision ‘is to place a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability.” Iowa’s six-week abortion ban takes effect long before a fetus becomes viable (even especially optimistic studies indicate that a fetus is unlikely to survive outside of the womb without 22 weeks of gestation). And Iowa’s new law does not simply “place a substantial obstacle” before patients seeking an abortion — it forbids abortion outright for most patients with pre-viable pregnancies.

Iowa’s new law closely maps a similar ban enacted by North Dakota in 2013. Notably, that law was struck down by a panel of three Republican appointees to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit — the same circuit that oversees Iowa — so the Iowa’s new ban should have no legal legs to stand on when it arrives in court.

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https://thinkprogress.org/the-anti-abortion-movements-latest-attack-on-roe-v-wade-is-less-subtle-than-a-trainwreck-6a4e8b86799c/