Several bills dealing with abortion have stalled in the Iowa legislature. One bill would have required doctors to offer to show a woman seeking an abortion an ultrasound and describe the image to her. It also would have stipulated that doctors ask a woman seeking an abortion if she wanted to hear the heartbeat of the fetus.
That bill, however, was not considered by a House committee and has failed to meet today’s (Friday’s) deadline for policy-related bills to advance through the committee level. Another abortion-related bill that failed to pass the deadline is referred to as “personhood” legislation.
It would have declared that life begins “at the moment of conception.” Similar bills have been introduced in Virgina, North Dakota and Alabama, as supporters seek to grant individual rights to embryos, but no state has such a law on the books today.