Angling for V.P., Iowa Gov Signs Abortion Ban at Event With 2024 Hopefuls
Kim Reynolds banned nearly all abortions in her state and turned the whole thing into a political spectacle.
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds on Friday signed into law a six-week abortion ban, turning it into a political spectacle at a conservative summit with several 2024 hopefuls, in a move widely seen as a bid for vice president.
She held the signing ceremony at the conservative Family Leadership Summit, where 2024 Republican candidates including Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson, and Vivek Ramaswamy were interviewed by erstwhile Fox News host Tucker Carlson earlier in the day. (Ron DeSantis is also on deck.)
Reynolds saw this as the perfect opportunity to make a show of taking away people’s health care, signing the bill on a stage with dozens of people.
State lawmakers passed the radical ban, which targets people before they know they are pregnant, overnight Tuesday, after Reynolds called a special session with the sole purpose of banning abortion. The new law is hugely unpopular, with hundreds of Iowans showing up at the state Capitol to protest the bill as it was being debated.
Many suspect that Reynolds is vying for a vice presidential nod. During testimony on Tuesday, one constituent called her out for using the abortion ban to “score political points.”
The law will ban nearly all abortions in Iowa. It technically makes exceptions for rape, but only if the attack is reported to law enforcement or a health provider within 45 days. There are also exceptions for incest and for cases where the fetus is nonviable or the pregnancy puts the patient’s life at risk. However, as reporter Jessica Valenti pointed out, the rules for an exception could put the patient’s life further at risk.
Even if a patient is miscarrying, they can only get an abortion if the fetus’s heartbeat has stopped. In many cases, waiting for fetal demise is what causes patients to develop sepsis.
Although the law goes into effect immediately, it could be blocked in a matter of days. A group that includes the ACLU of Iowa, Planned Parenthood North Central States, and local abortion provider the Emma Goldman Clinic sued to block the law the day after it passed the state legislature. A district court judge said he hoped to issue a ruling on Monday.
The lawsuit asks the court to assess the abortion ban’s constitutionality. Reynolds had previously signed a six-week abortion ban in 2018, but that measure was struck down the following year in the courts. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, Reynolds asked the courts to reinstate the 2018 ban, but the state Supreme Court was deadlocked on the issue and left a law banning abortion after 20 weeks in place. The new law could be struck down in the same manner as the first six-week ban.