on Thursday night passed a bill that implicitly protects the personhood status of an embryo in the eyes of the law, which critics contend will be detrimental to the practice ofthe state into the midst of a national battle over protections for IVF, which began following a controversial ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court thatFor it to be fully enacted, the bill will need to be passed by the Iowa Senate and signed...
The text of the bill itself does not reference the term “embryo” nor mention IVF by name. Instead, the bill amends the state’s total abortion ban statute to prohibit the “nonconsensual causing of death of, or serious injury to an unborn person,” which replaced the language of “termination of a human pregnancy.”
Causing the death of an unborn person “without the consent of the pregnant person” would be punishable as a Class A felony, punishable by up to a mandatory life prison sentence without the possibility of parole. Unintentionally causing the death of an unborn person would be a Class B felony under the new law, punishable by up to 25 years in prison.