Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Did Trump’s lawyers catch Michael Cohen in a ‘lie’? Let’s take a look.

Now playing off-Broadway: Trump’s synchronized sycophants

Trump’s courtroom enablers

The world’s coolest hotels want to tell you a story

6 Airbnb red flags to spot before you make a booking mistake

Some cruise prices are about to get a little more clear

Look to the cloud to protect the life documents saved on your computer

Can you spot bad financial advice on TikTok? Take our quiz.

5 myths about Social Security as the program faces a funding crisis

Puppy abandoned with heart-rending note is adopted, named Minerva

Man, 91, shocks tiny firehouse with $500K gift: ‘Nobody knew how much I’d saved’

Retired cop meets abandoned baby he helped 23 years ago: ‘What are the odds?’

Why this company’s biggest fans turned against it

These ISIS news anchors are AI fakes. Their propaganda is real.

Even remote and hybrid work can burn you out. Here’s how to avoid it.

Miss Manners: Longtime friends lose minds over canceled dinner plans

Carolyn Hax: After holiday meals, guests rush the kitchen to claim the leftovers

Ask Amy: Retired couple misses social activities since the pandemic

In photos: The scene in Houston after severe storms killed at least 4 people

Rep. AOC's 'people-first' approach

Rep. Delia Ramirez on organizing power and money

Elections 2024 live updates: Biden continues outreach to Black voters; Trump heading to Minnesota

At campus protests, ‘DO NOT TALK TO THE MEDIA’!

CNN gets a presidential debate — and a much-needed win

Bryce Harper, Joey Gallo and a bond forged by baseball since they were kids

Walter Johnson’s jersey from 1920 showdown with Babe Ruth is up for auction

A taco will always be a taco — no matter what we call it

No one is rocking in the ‘free world’

Kenyan president aims to attract green investment during U.S. visit

On Gaza, Biden is right and Netanyahu is wrong

Tariffs against China hamstring the transition to a clean energy future

The Post’s choices in Northern Virginia’s U.S. House primaries

States see legalized sports betting as a tax windfall — but at what cost?

Trump

See more coverage in your recommendations

Get the weekly Campaign Moment newsletter

Set alerts for major election developments

Election 2024

The Campaign Moment newsletter

Politics alerts

Rebecca S. Gratz

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/abortion/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Abortion</a> in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/03/20/iowa-trump-gay-rights/" target=_blank>Iowa</a> will remain legal until roughly 20 weeks of pregnancy after a deadlock on the state’s Supreme Court over whether to grant a request by Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) to reinstate a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/02/iowa-lawmakers-just-passed-one-of-the-most-restrictive-abortion-bills-in-the-u-s/" target=_blank>2018 law</a> that would have banned the procedure in most cases after six weeks.

With the split decision, announced Friday, a lower-court ruling that the state’s “fetal heartbeat law” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/05/15/women-rights-groups-ask-iowa-court-to-block-abortion-law-calling-it-beyond-extreme/" target="_blank">is unconstitutional</a> remains in effect.

Iowa is among a wave of Republican-led states that have sought to significantly curtail abortion rights after the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade last year.

Separately Friday in Ohio, a divided state Supreme Court ruled that an election can be held in August on a GOP-driven ballot measure that, if passed, would make it more difficult to amend the state constitution. Democrats have argued that it is an attempt to quash voter efforts to enshrine abortion rights into state law.

In Iowa, the state’s high court deadlocked over the unusual process state leaders were taking to restrict abortion rights.

Reynolds signed the law five years ago. It has remained blocked by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-digest-iowa-judge-strikes-down-states-fetal-heartbeat-abortion-law/2019/01/22/d6ea377a-1b9a-11e9-88fe-f9f77a3bcb6c_story.html" target=_blank>a 2019 district court ruling</a>, but last year Reynolds asked the Supreme Court to take another look, given developments on abortion nationally and in the state.

States where abortion is legal, banned or under threat

In an opinion signed by the three justices opposing the move, Justice Thomas D. Waterman wrote that Reynolds was asking the court to “do something that has never happened in Iowa history.”

“In our view, it is legislating from the bench to take a statute that was moribund when it was enacted and has been enjoined for four years and then to put it into effect,” he wrote.

Waterman noted that state officials did not appeal the injunction blocking the law at the time it was announced.

The state’s high court has seven members, but one was recused from the case, creating the prospect of a tie.

Critics of Iowa’s 2018 law and others like it say it largely bans abortion because women often do not know they are pregnant when the restrictions take effect.

In a statement Friday, Reynolds harshly criticized the “lack of action by the Iowa Supreme Court” and vowed that “the fight is not over.”

She castigated the state’s high court for having “sided with a single judge in a single county who struck down Iowa’s legislation based on principles that now have been flat-out rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Republican legislative leaders vowed to pass new legislation with abortion restrictions.

America’s unlikeliest abortion clinic has opened in its reddest state

“We feel strongly that the Heartbeat Bill is a good piece of legislation that would save the innocent lives of unborn children,” House Speaker Pat Grassley (R) said in a statement. “Going forward we will work together to pass legislation that will protect life, support new mothers, and promote strong families in Iowa.”

Meanwhile, Democrats in the state applauded the deadlock.

“I am thrilled that the Iowa Supreme Court will not stand in the way of Iowans who need abortion care, especially when our friends and neighbors already have to navigate so many barriers to health care,” Iowa Democratic Party Chairwoman Rita Hart said. “I know this is not the end of the discussion, but I am glad that for today, Iowans can breathe a sigh of relief that their right to make their own health-care decisions is protected under the law.”

In Ohio, the high court permitted an Aug. 8 election on State Issue 1, which seeks to raise the threshold required to amend the state’s constitution to 60 percent of the vote. A ballot initiative now only has to pass with a simple majority. The proposal also would impose more-stringent requirements on how signatures are gathered for ballot initiative campaigns.

The debate over the measure has become a proxy battle in recent months between Ohio Republicans, who control the state legislature, and Democrats who have argued that it is an attempt to make it more difficult to add abortion protections in the constitution.

An advocacy group sued Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) in a bid to block the election, arguing that it had been scheduled in violation of state election law. The high court voted 4-3 to let the election proceed.

In a separate ruling earlier this week, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/12/ohio-constitution-ballot-supreme-court/">the court ordered the Ohio Ballot Board</a> to rewrite what justices said was inaccurate and misleading language in the ballot measure.

The five-member board, chaired by LaRose, subsequently met to revise the language.

Ohio is among several states where lawmakers have been <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/02/least-three-red-states-could-make-it-harder-voters-keep-abortion-legal/?itid=lk_inline_manual_20" target=_blank>seeking to make it more difficult to pass citizen-led initiatives</a> after liberal policies — from protecting abortion rights to expanding Medicaid to raising the minimum wage — won at the ballot box across the country. Efforts to raise the bar to amend state constitutions have cropped up during legislative sessions in recent years.

If such efforts prevail, it could throw a wrench into one of abortion rights groups’ key strategies for restoring access to the procedure in states <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/24/abortion-state-laws-criminalization-roe/?itid=lk_inline_manual_21" target=_blank>where it’s banned</a>. Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, advocates have been exploring ballot measures to enshrine the procedure’s legality into state constitutions in at least a dozen states.

Amy B Wang contributed to this report.

Stanford University, BA in Political Science

John Wagner is The Post's national political breaking news editor. He previously was a reporter on the breaking news team. Prior to that, John covered the Trump White House. During the 2016 presidential election, he focused on the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. John also chronicled Maryland government for more than a decade.

John Wagner

washpost

Bid to ban abortions after six weeks in Iowa blocked by state Supreme Court

the-washington-post

Desantis Iowa

For The Washington Post

Biden administration

The Fix

The Briefs

Polling

Democracy in America

Balance of Power Pair

U.S. House Aggregate

U.S. Senate Aggregate

Politics

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/politics&limit=20

Cut through the 2024 election noise. Get The Campaign Moment newsletter.

Post Politics from The Washington Post is the source for political news headlines, in-depth politics coverage and political opinion, plus breaking news on the biden administration and White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, elections and more.