CRACKDOWN

Iowa Republicans Pass Six-Week Abortion Ban

The limit is earlier than the point at which many people even know they’re pregnant.

Iowa’s Republican-controlled legislature on Tuesday passed a bill which would outlaw most abortions after just six weeks. The restrictive rules passed in a one-day special legislative session would cut the legal limit for abortion in the state from its current 20-week cap, with the bill expected to be rapidly signed into law by GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds. The ban would prohibit abortions after the point at which cardiac activity can be detected via ultrasound, which is nevertheless weeks before a fetus has developed a full heart. Exceptions would be included in the ban for cases of incest, rape, as well as medical concerns for the life of the mother, miscarriages, and where fetal abnormalities are considered by a doctor to be “incompatible with life.”