Three years ago, the state of Iowa enacted a law prohibiting abortion after a fetal heartbeat has been detected except in certain circumstances. Since the heartbeat law went into effect abortion proponents have put forth misconceptions and false narratives claiming negative impacts from the law, and researchers at the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) released a report addressing some of the claims with evidence discrediting the falsehoods.
The paper titled Are Pro-Life Laws Harming Iowa Women? An Examination of Claims Against Iowa was authored by CLI Vice President and Director of Medical Affairs Dr. Ingrid Skop and Research Assistant Sara Smith and is Issue 9 of CLI’s On Women’s Health Series.
In in it Skop (and M.D.) and Smith responded to three claims against Iowa’s heartbeat law: Abortion laws will prevent quality care in obstetric emergencies, causing Iowa women to suffer severe health consequences; limiting access to abortion will cause overall maternal mortality in Iowa to worsen; and constraints placed on OB-GYNs by the new abortion law will drive the remaining maternity care providers out of the state and make it difficult to recruit new doctors.
Iowa is like other U.S. states with pro-life abortion regulations, such as Texas, where attacks come from pro-abortion advocates with similar assertions, whether regarding the individual state’s laws or over all since the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v. Wade returned abortion regulation to the states.
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Skop had addressed claims against the Texas heartbeat law in a 2025 paper, concluding, that, “Texas’ pro-life laws have been unfairly mischaracterized and maligned. Pro-abortion motivations have prompted allegations which have been proven false or imply outcomes which cannot yet be determined.”
The president of the largest network of pregnancy help organizations in the U.S. and globally welcomed CLI analysis of the pro-abortion narrative directed at Iowa’s heartbeat law.
“The law is a teacher, and unfortunately we’ve had the law favoring abortion teaching us for 50 years,” Jor-El Godsey said. “So, it’s premature to suddenly have a problem with these particular laws that are much more recent in history to really understand their full effect because they do teach us that moms are important, babies are important, and families are important.”
“It’s always good to have someone take an empirical look at the information to have a clear-eyed look at the laws that impact life,” said Godsey.
Falsehoods about quality care in medical emergencies
In their paper, Skop and Smith first highlighted the concern that abortion laws will prevent quality care in obstetric emergencies, causing Iowa women to suffer severe health consequences. The authors point out that the Iowa law allows for physicians to use their “reasonable medical judgment” for determining if “a medical emergency or fetal heartbeat exception exists” that warrants an abortion. The life and health of the mother is one of the exceptions for an abortion. So is a pregnancy that results from rape or incest, if the crimes are reported within 45 or 140 days, respectively.
“Nowhere in the Iowa law is there a requirement that the threat to the mother’s life or substantial impairment of a major bodily function be ‘immediate’ or ‘certain,’” the authors state, and that “…the law clearly allows a physician to use common sense and clinical experience (“reasonable medical judgment”), to determine when and how to intervene.”
Many factors with maternal mortality
Addressing another claim, that limiting access to abortion will cause overall maternal mortality in Iowa to worsen, the CLI authors noted three different media stories regarding that accusation, and while they agreed the United States needs to improve in this area of healthcare, they note that there is no standard definition of maternal mortality, there are often other contributing factors to maternal deaths, and the U.S.’s concerning maternal mortality rate existed long prior to the current abortion regulation landscape.
“It appears the U.S. leads the developed world in maternal mortality despite our affluence and medical advances,” the author wrote. “This has been the case for decades, including when abortion was readily available in every state.”
They noted how some of the statistics used in the media reports were pulled from the COVID-19 era and included other relevant factors:
“Twenty pregnancy-related maternal deaths of Iowa women were reported over the three-year time period (2019-2021) when there were approximately 110,598 live births: 30% resulted from infection (often due to COVID-19), 20% from hemorrhage, 20% from embolism, and 30% from other conditions, including mental health conditions. Obesity was the most common contributing circumstance, documented in 40% of the women who died. Notably, 80% occurred postpartum with 25% occurring more than six weeks postpartum.”
The media articles critical of the Iowa heartbeat law did not include this important information.
More to the story with maternity care providers
The third false assertion, that constraints placed on OB-GYNs by the new abortion law will drive the remaining maternity care providers out of the state and make it difficult to recruit new doctors, attempted to tie the lack of OB-GYNs in the state to Iowa’s abortion restriction.
However, there can be different reasons for a low number of practitioners in this medical specialty, the authors wrote, including the large number of retiring OB-GYNs, a small number of residency slots, malpractice lawsuits, and others. Skop and Smith point out that Iowa has only six OB-GYN residency openings, and they are all at one location in the state, the University of Iowa. Additionally, the U of I offers only one single-year OB fellowship for board-certified family medicine physicians.
Burnout for OB-GYNs is also high, the authors said, a fact that’s happening around the country, especially in rural areas.
“Evidence shows high burnout rates and a shortage in OB-GYNs long before the Dobbs decision,” Skop and Smith stated.
Tweet This: Many false pro-abortion narratives have arisen in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
Pro-life is pro-woman and pro-baby
Converse to the negative pro-abortion falsehoods directed at Iowa’s heartbeat law the CLI researchers pointed how that “Iowa has prioritized providing support for pregnant women. Additionally, at least 50 pregnancy centers exist to walk with women through difficult pregnancies.”
Iowa is also one of 19 states that has approved some form of alternatives to abortion funding to life-affirming pregnancy help organizations, the CLI report noted. Iowa women can find these organizations, which offer services such as STI testing, parenting classes, post-abortion healing, pregnancy tests, options counseling, and ultrasounds, through a map at iowapregnancysupport.com.
The Iowa Health and Human Services department also has a page titled “Pregnancy Resources” containing a map of Healthy Pregnancy Program Contacts.
Iowa’s alternatives-to-abortion program, More Options for Maternal Support (MOMS) program, Iowa’s, was created in 2022 and in fiscal year 2024-25, $1 million was allocated for the program. MOMS endeavors to promote healthy pregnancies and childbirth by providing funding to pregnancy help organizations and reducing the number of abortions through financial, prenatal, and medical support for mothers in need, according to the CLI report.
Godsey said it is a good thing for the community to support moms and families, underscoring the value and impact of pregnancy help.
“Every time there’s a pregnancy help organization in a community, that’s an affirmation of motherhood and of families,” Godsey told Pregnancy Help News. “Anything that diminishes that diminishes the community and the family. Perpetuating the myth that these laws are somehow harmful has the effect of trying to dampen or diminish the true value of any pregnancy center.”
Skop and Smith concluded that, properly understood, Iowa’s laws do not prevent quality medical care in obstetric emergencies, there are some reasons to suggest that abortion limitations may improve issues related to maternal mortality in certain respects, most OB-GYNs do not perform elective abortions, so these laws should not impact their practices, and pregnancy centers are available to help.
“We value our smallest residents,” Godsey said. “And our laws should reflect that we value them. We value them over the abortion industry.”
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News.
