Published July 2, 2024
In another important decision on Friday, the Iowa supreme court ruled by a vote of 4 to 3 in Planned Parenthood of the Heartland v. Reynolds that the state may enforce its recently enacted law that (except in instances of medical emergency, rape, or incest) bars abortion when the in utero human being has a detectable heartbeat.
Justice Matthew McDermott wrote the excellent majority opinion. Building on the court’s previous determination that abortion is not a “fundamental right” under the state constitution, Justice McDermott determines that abortion laws are subject to deferential “rational basis” review and that the heartbeat law easily meets that standard. The ruling resolves the deadlock that the court reached a year ago on the heartbeat law that Iowa enacted in 2018.
I’m sorry to see that Justice Edward Mansfield, who was on Donald Trump’s list of Supreme Court candidates in 2016, was among the dissenters and wrote an opinion replete with living-constitutionalist gobbledygook.
The dissenters claim that the majority “perpetuates the gendered hierarchies of old when women were second-class citizens.” That claim is rather difficult to reconcile with the fact that Iowa enacted the heartbeat law last year. Given the gender politics, I will point out that Justice Dana Oxley, who joined the majority opinion, is a woman.
Edward Whelan is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and holds EPPC’s Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies. He is the longest-serving President in EPPC’s history, having held that position from March 2004 through January 2021.
