Earlier this month, Iowa passed a draconian piece of anti-choice legislation known as a “heartbeat bill,” which bans abortion from the moment a fetal heartbeat can be detected. This legislation is the brainchild of radical Religious Right activist Janet Porter, who has been pushing the same bill in her home state of Ohio for years and has also been pushing for a federal version of the legislation ever since President Trump took office.
Porter brags that her Heartbeat Bill will outlaw abortion “before the mother even knows she’s pregnant” and will be “the foot in the door” to eventually completely outlawing abortion, and while she was thrilled by Iowa’s passage of the law, she is now urging the state legislature to go even further.
Appearing on Gordon Klingenschmitt’s “Pray In Jesus Name” program yesterday, Porter said that a fetal heartbeat can be detected by about six weeks of pregnancy using current technology, and that outlawing abortion at this point will eliminate approximately two-thirds of all abortions. Iowa, she said, should now pass a law banning abortion not from the point when a heartbeat can be detected, but from the point when the fetal heartbeat first occurs, which is a mere 18 days after conception.
“People ask me, ‘If we can’t protect from conception, what would be the next bill you would recommend for the people of Iowa?'” Porter said. “Well, I’d recommend a bill that would protect babies from the occurrence of a heartbeat. We might not be able to hear it, but at 18 days, the occurrence of that baby’s heart is beating and that means that we would protect them all.”
