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Judge Temporarily Enjoins Law That Would Limit Abortions To Women Who Don't Know They're Pregnant

Iowa's fetal heartbeat law is stayed, for now.

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I don’t always know if Republican lawmakers are wickedly clever in their attempts to deny health care for women, or if they are critically ignorant of how the reproductive system works. The answer is probably “a little of both,” but still. The combination of intellectual dishonesty and rank stupidity makes it difficult to know which thread to even pull on to fight these people.

Iowa lawmakers passed a “fetal heartbeat” law. When signed by the governor last month, it immediately became the most restrictive abortion law on the books. The law outlaws abortions after a heartbeat can be detected. Not the mother’s heartbeat, of course. GOP lawmakers don’t give a damn about the living, breathing, born-human they attempt to turn into incubators with mouthparts. Abortions are banned once doctors can detect a fetal heartbeat.

Which pretty much bans all abortions. Many women don’t even know that they are for sure pregnant until after a heartbeat can be detected, which happens at about six weeks after conception. The few who do have usually been proactively trying to get pregnant. For women who aren’t trying to get pregnant, but find out that they are pregnant before a heartbeat can be detected, that leaves them a couple of weeks at most to decide to have an abortion and have the procedure. It takes more time to adopt a frickin’ dog from an animal shelter than Iowa wants to give women to make this decision, before the state makes the decision for them.

I suppose Iowa wants women to just throw themselves down the stairs after every sex act that was not intended to produce offspring just to be safe, but the first 5,000 years of human history proved that’s an ineffective means of family planning.

Judge Michael Huppert issued a temporary injunction against the law that was supposed to take effect on July 1st. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller refuse to defend the law. But a group of conservative lawyers decided to represent the state for free. Now, they plan to appeal the injunction as soon as possible.

I assume this case will reach the Eighth Circuit, and no higher. The Supreme Court has been studiously avoiding the abortion issue, leaving states free to chip away at women’s rights as much as the lower courts will allow. While cowardly, it makes sense. There are likely four votes to defend abortion rights, four votes to issue a coat hanger to every woman and wish her luck, and neither side trusts what Justice Anthony Kennedy will do.

Elsewhere, Ireland voted to overturn its abortion ban. Yes, that Ireland.

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I hope Canada invades soon.

Judge agrees to halt fetal heartbeat abortion law in Iowa [NBC News]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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