{"id":314810,"date":"2024-06-28T12:30:14","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T17:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=314810"},"modified":"2024-07-17T11:26:06","modified_gmt":"2024-07-17T16:26:06","slug":"iowa-supreme-court-upholds-heartbeat-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/iowa-supreme-court-upholds-heartbeat-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Iowa Supreme Court upholds law protecting preborn children after detectable heartbeat"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On Friday, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled to uphold<\/a> the state’s law<\/a> protecting preborn children from being killed by abortion after about six weeks gestation (four weeks post-fertilization), when a prenatal heartbeat can be detected. Previously, babies were legally allowed to be killed up to 22 weeks gestation in the state.<\/p>\n

A preborn child’s heart begins to beat by around day 22 after fertilization, even before it has formed four chambers.<\/p>\n

“As the heartbeat bill finally becomes law, we are deeply committed to supporting women in planning for motherhood, and promoting fatherhood and its importance in parenting,” said Gov. Kim Reynolds, who signed the law in July 2023.<\/p>\n

The law first passed during a special 2023 legislative session that had been called in order to pass laws protecting preborn children. It prevents preborn children with a detectable heartbeat from being directly and intentionally killed by abortion but includes exceptions for children conceived in rape or incest, and for prenatal diagnoses that could cause death, as well as for medical emergencies (though induced abortion \u2014 the direct and intentional killing of a preborn child \u2014 is never medically necessary<\/a>).<\/p>\n

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