Iowa Passes Bill Banning Abortion After Fetal Heartbeat Detected

Legislators in the state of Iowa have passed a bill aiming to limit the window on when a woman can have an abortion.

Reuters:

Iowa’s Republican-controlled legislature passed the most restrictive abortion ban in the United States on Wednesday, outlawing the procedure after a fetal heartbeat is detected, often at six weeks and before a woman realizes she is pregnant.

The Senate voted 29-17 to pass the House of Representatives-approved bill, according to the legislature’s online voting tallies. The bill now goes to Republican Governor Kim Reynolds, an abortion opponent, who has not said publicly whether she will sign it into law.

It’s indicative of how far America has gone to the dark side of the abortion issue that suggesting that a human heartbeat be considered as a sign of life and, you know, humanity needs to be passed into law.

Pro-life advocates can take some measure of comfort in the fact that state-level Republicans haven’t abandoned their cause. The GOP at the national level continues to not only include taxpayer funding for the biggest abortion mill in America — Planned Parenthood — but continues offering weak excuses as to why it has to do so.

Iowa’s pro-life, conservative legislators aren’t just thinking locally, however. They are hoping to get the fight back into the national, Supreme Court-level conversation:

“We created an opportunity to take a run at Roe v. Wade – 100 percent,” said Republican state Senator Rick Bertrand of Sioux City, who said the legislation is designed to be “thrust into the court” that has become more conservative following President Donald Trump’s appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Naturally, the fevered pro-abortion lobby has been triggered. One Planned Parenthood representative said that the bill “weaponizes the fetal heartbeat,” whatever that means in their world.

The ghouls at NARAL are, of course, beside themselves:

Iowa’s anti-choice politicians have been crystal clear about their intentions—they want to use this extremist bill to overturn 𝑅𝑜𝑒 𝑣. 𝑊𝑎𝑑𝑒 and ban abortion across the country. https://t.co/cduzuzTYyO #WontGoBack #NoAbortionBan #IAPol

— NARAL (@NARAL) May 2, 2018

This may be extraordinarily wishful thinking, but maybe forcing the abortion debate more prominently back into the national conversation might at the very least rein in what are among the most liberal abortion laws in the world. The pro-abortion crowd likes to wail about not going back because they really want abortion laws in this country to be even more lenient. It’s rather difficult to pin them down on exactly how late is too late in the pregnancy to kill the baby.

So kudos to Iowa Republicans for having the temerity to tackle an issue that the super-nifty GOP majority in Washington shrinks away from every chance it gets.