Iowa’s Supreme Court throws out abortion restriction
DES MOINES — The Iowa Supreme Court struck down a law Friday that requires a 72-hour waiting period for women seeking an abortion, ruling that the restriction was an unconstitutional burden on women.
The court issued a 5-2 decision concluding that the law violated the Iowa Constitution because its restrictions on women “are not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest of the state.” Justices also noted the waiting period could force delays, increase costs and in some cases prevent a woman from legally obtaining an abortion.
“Autonomy and dominion over one’s body go to the very heart of what it means to be free,” the court said. “At stake in this case is the right to shape, for oneself, without unwarranted governmental intrusion, one’s own identity, destiny, and place in the world. Nothing could be more fundamental to the notion of liberty.”
The ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood of Iowa and the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa. The groups sued the state shortly after the law was approved last year, arguing that a woman’s right to an abortion was a core privacy right protected by the Iowa Constitution and federal law.
Attorneys for Planned Parenthood and the state had no immediate comment on the ruling.
The waiting period is part of a larger state law that bans most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The 20week ban is in effect and isn’t part of the legal challenge. A district court judge upheld the law’s waiting period provision in September, but the Supreme Court blocked its implementation a month later so it could consider arguments from both sides.
In its Friday ruling, the state’s high court noted it wasn’t concluding that a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy was unlimited.
“Nevertheless, the state’s capacity to legislate pursuant to its own moral scruples is necessarily curbed by the constitution,” Chief Justice Mark Cady wrote. “The state may pick a side, but in doing so, it may not trespass upon the fundamental rights of the people.”
Justices Edward Mansfield and Thomas Waterman disagreed. Mansfield’s dissenting opinion argued that the majority opinion forgoes “accepted methods of constitutional interpretation, and at times relies “on an undertone of moral criticism toward abortion opponents.”
Mansfield is on President Trump’s list of potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees.