Iowa Senate approves ban on abortions after fetal heartbeat is detected

The Iowa Senate approved legislation Wednesday that would prevent physicians from performing abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected.

The measure was approved 30-20 and is headed to the House of Representatives, where it faces an uncertain future.

“Senate File 2281 gets at the very heart and soul of what it means to be an American, of what it means to be a person," said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Amy Sinclair, R-Allerton.

The legislation says that except in cases of medical emergency, a physician could not perform an abortion in Iowa unless a pregnant woman has been tested to determine if a fetal heartbeat can be detected.

A heartbeat can be detected as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.

A doctor who performs an abortion after a fetal heartbeat has been detected and without a medical emergency could be charged with a Class D felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.

Democrats decried the legislation, which would almost certainly face legal challenges if passed into law, as "unconstitutional," "extreme" and "dangerous."

Senate Minority Leader Janet Petersen, D-Des Moines, called it "unfathomable" that the bill would not make exceptions in cases of rape or incest — only if the mother's life is in danger.

"There are no other provisions in Iowa code that say an Iowan cannot access medical care unless it is to prevent death," she said. "... Under this Republican bill, you would force a child rape victim to have a baby, no matter how young she is. That is unfathomable."

The bill is opposed by the Iowa Board of Regents, because leaders fear it could jeopardize the University of Iowa Health Care's accreditation with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, or ACMGE.

"The University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and Iowa Obstetrics and Gynecology Department is accredited by ACGME," spokesman Josh Lehman previously told the Register. "In order to receive ACGME accreditation, UI’s obstetrics and gynecology program is required to provide family planning training, including all forms of contraception and training in the provision of abortion, if the student so chooses. If this law was passed, limitations on abortions in Iowa would eliminate the ability to meet training requirements."

Petersen said Iowa already lacks enough trained OB-GYN physicians and worried the bill would mean fewer people would train at Iowa schools and stay to practice in rural parts of the state.

"When you lose doctors in rural Iowa, maternal health care outcomes suffer," she said.

Sinclair argued the legislation is about protecting life.

She recalled hearing her son's heartbeat for the first time on an ultrasound and hearing her father's heartbeat fade as he died.

"In each of those cases I knew the heartbeat or the lack of one was the indication of another human being’s life," she said. "Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, people in this chamber with a beating heart, please take a moment with me to reflect on what it means to be human, to be a person with rights, to aggressively defend your own right to life and to defend your reasonable expectation that your government should actively support you and all other individuals with a beating heart in that very same endeavor."

The legislation now moves to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

Last year, House Republicans briefly tried to advance a fetal heartbeat abortion ban but reversed course after finding they did not have enough Republican support to pass such a bill.

When asked about the Senate's fetal heartbeat legislation at a recent press conference, House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, said House Republicans intend to focus on legislation banning parents from suing for "wrongful birth" if a doctor withholds information from them about fetal abnormalities.

That bill, passed on the House floor Tuesday, stems from a recent lawsuit in which an Iowa family said they were never informed of fetal abnormalities, which would have led them to terminate the pregnancy. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled that families could sue for wrongful birth unless the Legislature acts.

"We want to make sure we’re protecting physicians in those circumstances," she said.

Last year, then-Gov. Terry Branstad signed into law a bill banning most abortions performed after 20 weeks of pregnancy.