Iowans supporting access to abortion rally on Thursday, April 11, 2024, outside the courthouse in Des Moines, Iowa, where the Iowa Supreme Court heard arguments on the state's restrictive abortion law. The law that bans most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy.That will replace the state's current ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. It sets a short timeline for getting the procedure, with many women not aware of their pregnancy for the first several weeks.
In the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court ended a federal right to abortion in the Dobbs case, state lawmakers around the country have been making a new patchwork of reproductive rights. In many states, that's meant setting new restrictions on abortion - though the Today the court found that there is a"rational basis" to write a law banning abortion based on the detection of a fetal heartbeat, stating,"We conclude that the fetal heartbeat statute is rationally related to the state’s legitimate interest in protecting unborn life."