After a two-day trial, a district court in Iowa on Tuesday upheld a state law that, among other provisions, requires a 72-hour waiting period for patients seeking abortion care.

SF 471, which then-Gov. Terry Branstad (R) signed into law on May 5, requires pregnant patients to certify 72 hours in advance of obtaining an abortion that they have undergone an ultrasound, that they have been given an opportunity to view and hear a description of the ultrasound image, and that they have received certain state-mandated materials.

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland (PPH), represented by Planned Parenthood Federation of America and ACLU Iowa, immediately filed for an injunction arguing that the GOP-backed law infringed on patients’ due process rights because it imposes an undue burden on their right to obtain abortion care. On the day Branstad signed the bill into law, the Iowa Supreme Court issued a temporary injunction blocking its enforcement while the case proceeded to trial.

Attorneys for PPH, during the two-day trial in July, argued that the forced waiting period poses an undue burden on a pregnant patient’s right to due process under the Iowa Constitution because it imposes an undue burden on patients seeking an abortion.

Iowa Fifth Judicial District Court Judge Jerry Farrell, however, ruled that the law was constitutional. He found that there was no material distinction between Iowa’s informed consent law and Pennsylvania’s informed consent law at issue in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.

“The Iowa Act is different from the Pennsylvania Act in that the mandatory delay is 72 hours rather than 24,” Farrell wrote in his order.

“PPH characterizes this difference as triple the delay, but the court does not find the extra two days to be material in light of the case law and the record.”

PPH contended that the court should apply a “strict scrutiny” standard because it brought the case under the Iowa Constitution, not the U.S. Constitution. Attorneys for the state argued that the federal undue burden standard applies to claims brought under the Iowa Constitution just as it applies to claims brought under the U.S. Constitution.

Judge Farrell sided with the state.

The Iowa Supreme Court had the opportunity to abandon the undue burden standard in 2015 when it considered for the first time whether the Iowa Constitution protects a person’s decision to terminate a pregnancy, Judge Farrell noted in his order.

In that case, Planned Parenthood of Heartland v. Iowa Board of Medicine, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a ban on abortion via telemedicine violated the Iowa Constitution. The state’s Supreme Court evaluated PPH’s state constitutional claims using the federal undue burden standard. If the court had not seen fit to abandon the federal undue burden test when considering Iowa’s telemedicine ban, there was no reason to abandon it when evaluating Iowa’s mandatory delay law, according to Judge Farrell.

“The undue burden standard has been in place for 25 years. It has been applied by a number of federal and state courts when considering other challenges to mandatory delay laws. While the Iowa Supreme Court could use a different legal standard under the Iowa Constitution in a future case, the court did not do so in 2015 when given the opportunity,” Judge Farrell wrote.

The court agreed with PPH that a 72-hour waiting period would force people to make two trips to a PPH clinic—one to get an ultrasound and certify to the informed consent and another for the procedure. The court acknowledged the financial hardships on Iowans who live farthest from a Planned Parenthood center and the impact on domestic abuse victims who might be forced to reveal their pregnancy to their abuser if required to make two visits to a clinic. The court likewise acknowledged that scheduling delays could result in a loss of the option to choose a medication abortion, which is safer.

The court nevertheless balanced those concerns against Iowa’s interest in potential life, an interest which it said “cannot be denied under the law” and found Planned Parenthood’s concerns on behalf of its patients wanting.

“The undue burden standard has been criticized, but it fairly balances the two competing interest of a woman’s right to choose an abortion versus the public’s interest in potential life,” Farrell wrote.

The court found that PPH had not met that standard.

“Casey makes clear that the issue at stake is whether the burden serves as a substantial obstacle to a woman exercising her right to choose an abortion, and not whether there are additional costs imposed,” he wrote.

“There is no question that the second trip will have some impact on low-income women and those who have to drive longer distances. However, the fact that there is some burden is not dispositive if the Act does not place a substantial obstacle in the way of women getting an abortion .… There will be some costs and confidentiality concerns, but these are the same concerns that were considered and rejected in Casey.”

The court implemented a 30-day stay to give PPH time to appeal the ruling to the Iowa Supreme Court.

PPH and the ACLU already filed an appeal of the ruling and will seek a temporary injunction of the law from the Iowa Supreme Court, according to the Gazette.

“If this law indeed goes into effect, it will leave Iowa with one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country,” Suzanna de Baca, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, said in a statement, as reported by the Gazette.

“This unconstitutional disregard by lawmakers—including Gov. Kim Reynolds —for women and their right to abortion access, is unacceptable. We will fight with every available resource until we ensure that all women have access to the care they need.”

https://rewire.news/article/2017/10/04/judge-upholds-iowas-forced-72-hour-waiting-period/

Just hours after Senate Republicans’ latest effort to gut the Affordable Care Act (ACA) died before a vote, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced a Tuesday vote on House Resolution 36(HR 36), a bill criminalizing abortion care at the arbitrary 20-week cutoff point.

Research and epidemiological data don’t support the bill. And we would know: We are reproductive health researchers, certified nurse midwives, family and women’s health providers, nurse practitioners, physicians, mental health nurses, and public health advocates.

We also know the toll HR 36 will take. If this bill passes, there will be dramatic effects on individuals who need to access abortion care, especially people of color; the low-income; and those who learn that their pregnancies come with serious, even fatal, health problems for them or their fetuses.

But the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” shows Republicans’ dedication to this kind of abortion ban and also their increasing desperation for a win after devastating failures to repeal Obamacare and before the 2018 elections. Quite simply, they hope to score political points by robbing pregnant people of the ability to make the best medical decisions for themselves.

And all for a bill that’s misleading at best and egregious at worst.

The bill’s very name is misinformation: At its foundation is the claim that a fetus can feel pain at this point in gestation. This is not supported by reliable evidence or respected medical research. A recent systematic review of more than 150 studies about fetal pain found that a fetus’ neurological system is too undeveloped to perceive pain at this random moment chosen by anti-abortion politicians who have pushed similar 20-week bans in many states and previously tried, unsuccessfully, to pass it in the U.S. Congress.

So why do the bill’s sponsors and supporters continue making this claim? Clearly, ideology trumps science here. But also, because they are politicians and not clinical experts, they choose to exploit extremely rare instances when severely premature infants have survived (often at great cost in terms of money and quality of life for them and their families). The authors of this bill incorrectly portray 20-week fetuses as viable, arguing that most could potentially live without significant disability or health complications. Health-care decisions should be based on reality and evidence-based research.

The bill’s sponsors and supporters say it will protect, not harm, families. But that could not be farther from the truth. In fact, HR 36 is antithetical to reproductive justice—a human rights framework developed by Black women and which says individuals have a right to choose when to give birth, terminate pregnancies, and parent—for several important reasons.

People in the United States already face many barriers to accessing safe, legal abortion care. Delays in pregnancy confirmation, insurance coverage bans on abortion care like the Hyde Amendment, and state-required waiting periods and parental-consent laws—along with finding money to cover child care, lost wages, travel, and lodging costs—make obtaining abortion care an increasingly more difficult task. Barriers can take weeks or months to overcome, creating more delays. People of color, those with lower education levels, and those who experience multiple life stressors in the preceding year are more vulnerable to these delays and therefore more likely to suffer the effects of HR 36.

Furthermore, pregnant people in rural and low-income communities are doubly constrained by challenges if they decide to—or are forced to by measures like HR 36—to continue their pregnancy. In addition to the few abortion care providers in this country, the shortage of pregnancy care is a well-documented problem, affecting more than half of the counties in the United States. It is unconscionable to force people to continue pregnancies in a country with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world, without ensuring the pregnant person has a safe passage.

HR 36 creates a system where some pregnant people won’t be able to access the abortion care they need and will be forced to carry their pregnancy to term. While the bill does include two exceptions (if the pregnant person’s life is in danger and in the case of rape), they are not enough.

These exceptions fail at protecting health of the pregnant person. At what point is death or injury considered “imminent enough” for an abortion to be allowed under this bill? How certain does a provider need to be without risking arrest?

State-level abortion bans with these limited exceptions like HR 36 disproportionately affect families receiving a fetal diagnosis via anatomy ultrasound (traditionally done between 18 and 22 weeks) or amniocentesis, which cannot be done before the second trimester and is the “gold standard” for chromosomal disorder diagnosis. Although often touted as “protecting” people with disabilities, these bans do nothing to address very real challenges an ableist society creates for these same people. Indeed, many of the bill’s sponsors, including Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), voted in favor of repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which gave vital coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, including disabilities.

Finally, bans like HR 36 are unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court made its stance clear in 2014 when it declined to hear Arizona’s appeal of a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that struck down a state ban similar to HR 36. Unfortunately, anti-choice politicians continue to ignore the U.S. Constitution.

If HR 36 becomes law, it signifies the same irresponsible disregard for improving and protecting access to health care that these same politicians have shown when pushing their multiple versions of Trumpcare. The brunt of these restricted choices will fall most heavily on marginalized women of color, the poor, and people struggling with difficult health news or conditions.

If the bill’s sponsors and supporters are really worried about what causes pain, they need to look no further than their own proposed bill.

https://rewire.news/article/2017/10/02/pain-capable-unborn-child-protection-act-protecting/