Iowa abortion providers dismiss legal challenge against state’s strict law now that it’s in effect

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa abortion providers opted to dismiss their lawsuit against the state Thursday, forgoing a continued legal battle after the Iowa Supreme Court upheld the state’s strict abortion law and reiterated that there is no constitutional right to an abortion in the state.

Iowa’s law prohibiting most abortions after about six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant, went into effect on July 29. Abortion had been legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.

More than a dozen states across the country have tightened abortion access in the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

The Iowa law was passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in a special session last year, but a legal challenge was immediately filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, Planned Parenthood North Central States and the Emma Goldman Clinic. The law was in effect for just a few days before a district judge temporarily blocked it, a decision Gov. Kim Reynolds appealed to the state’s high court.

The Iowa Supreme Court’s 4-3 ruling in June reiterated that there is no constitutional right to an abortion in the state and ordered the hold to be lifted.

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