Current Iowa Abortion Law

(September, 2024)

      • No Abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected.
      • 24-hour waiting period before obtaining an abortion
      • Parental notification before obtaining an abortion
      • Ultra-sound must be performed and woman must be given the option to view that ultra-sound before having an abortion

The Abortion Pill

The Supreme Court recently blocked a federal court ruling that imposed restrictions on the abortion pill, maintaining access to the drug while a challenge to the Food and Drug Administration's approval plays out.

The justices returned the case to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

What this means: Access to mifepristone, one of two drugs used in the most common regimen for medication abortion, will remain unchanged while the case continues.  This is extremely frustrating news and will mean that more women will be harmed by this dangerous drug and innocent lives lost.

In the court case Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, four health care organizations and four doctors sued the FDA for illegally approving the chemical abortion drug regimen.  The FDA failed to study the effects of the dangerous drug mifepristone which is one of the two drugs used in a chemical abortion.

On April 7, District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Texas issued a ruling on this case and halted FDA approval of this drug.  The FDA had seven days to appeal this ruling.  The following Wednesday, a federal appeals court reversed part of the ruling by Kacsmaryk.  This judge allowed the FDA to continue to approve mifepristone.

However, the judge did not halt FDA’s action in 2016 to loosen the safeguards on this pill.  This meant that the drug could no longer be mailed, had to be administered in person, and could only be used up to 7 weeks of pregnancy (instead of 10 weeks that it had currently been approved for).

The next day, U.S. Department of Justice asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay this ruling which would have gone into effect on Saturday April 15. The Supreme Court granted this stay until Wednesday April 19th.  Late afternoon of the 19th, Justice Samuel Alito extended the administrative stay on this case until Friday April 21st.

Of the 3,761 abortions in Iowa in 2021, almost 80% are chemical abortions.