Iowa on Monday began enforcing a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, Reuters reports. The state has become the 22nd in the nation to implement broad restrictions on terminating pregnancies since the US Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights in 2022.

The legislation prohibits abortions before many women are even aware of their pregnancies, while allowing exceptions for cases involving rape, medical emergencies, and fatal fetal anomalies. The enforcement follows a ruling by Iowa's state Supreme Court last month against a challenge by Planned Parenthood to halt the law.

The law, passed during a special legislative session in 2023, came after the state Supreme Court failed to reinstate a separate 2018 abortion ban. Iowa's Republican-majority legislature pushed through the new restrictions, rejecting efforts by Democrats to broaden the law's exceptions, including a proposal to permit abortions for pregnant children aged 12 or younger.

"This law represents a significant shift in Iowa's approach to reproductive rights," said Lyz Lenz, co-chair of the Iowa Abortion Access Fund. Vice President Kamala Harris wrote on X, "This morning, more than 1.5 million women in Iowa woke up with fewer rights than they had last night because of another Trump abortion ban." She vowed to stop the bans in November if she were to win the presidential election.

This morning, more than 1.5 million women in Iowa woke up with fewer rights than they had last night because of another Trump Abortion Ban.

In November, we will stop Trump's extreme abortion bans at the ballot box. pic.twitter.com/nE5HOT0avN

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 29, 2024

Maggie DeWitte, executive director of the Iowa-based organization Pulse Life Advocates, which opposes abortion, said, "We believe this law will protect the sanctity of life." DeWitte added that her group would continue to support pregnant women through various outreach programs.

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The Supreme Court on Friday preserved women's access to a drug used in the most common method of abortion, rejecting lower-court restrictions while a lawsuit continues.

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The justices granted emergency requests from the Biden administration and New York-based Danco Laboratories, maker of the drug mifepristone. They are appealing a lower court ruling that would roll back the Food and Drug Administration approval of mifepristone. The drug has been approved for use in the US since 2000 and more than 5 million people have used it. Mifepristone is used in combination with a second drug, misoprostol, in more than half of all abortions in the US.

The court's action Friday almost certainly will leave access to mifepristone unchanged at least into next year, as appeals play out, including a potential appeal to the high court. The next stop for the case is at the New Orleans-based US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which has set arguments in the case for May 17. President Joe Biden praised the high court for keeping mifepristone available while the court fight continues. "The stakes could not be higher for women across America. I will continue to fight politically-driven attacks on women's health. But let's be clear – the American people must continue to use their vote as their voice and elect a Congress who will pass a law restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade," Biden said in a statement.

Two of the nine justices – Samuel Alito, the author of last year's decision overturning Roe v. Wade, and Clarence Thomas – voted to allow restrictions to take effect, and Alito issued a four-page dissent. No other justices commented on the court's one-paragraph order, and the court did not release a full vote breakdown. The justices weighed arguments that allowing restrictions contained in lower-court rulings to take effect would severely disrupt the availability of mifepristone. In his majority opinion last June, Alito said one reason for overturning Roe was to remove federal courts from the abortion fight. "It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives," he wrote.

But even with their court victory, abortion opponents returned to federal court with a new target: medication abortions, which make up more than half of all abortions in the United States. Alliance Defending Freedom, representing abortion opponents challenging the FDA's approval of mifepristone, downplayed the court's action. "As is common practice, the Supreme Court has decided to maintain the status quo that existed prior to our lawsuit while our challenge to the FDA's illegal approval of chemical abortion drugs and its removal of critical safeguards for those drugs moves forward," ADF lawyer Erik Baptist said in a statement.

The challenge to mifepristone is the first abortion controversy to reach the nation's highest court since its conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade 10 months ago and allowed more than a dozen states to effectively ban abortion outright. Women seeking to end their pregnancies in the first 10 weeks without more invasive surgical abortion can take mifepristone, along with misoprostol. The FDA has eased the terms of mifepristone's use over the years, including allowing it to be sent through the mail in states that allow access.

The abortion opponents filed suit in Texas in November, asserting that the FDA's original approval of mifepristone 23 years ago and subsequent changes were flawed. They won a ruling on April 7 by US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, revoking FDA approval of mifepristone. The judge gave the Biden administration and Danco Laboratories a week to appeal and seek to keep his ruling on hold.

Responding to a quick appeal, two more Trump appointees on the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals said the FDA's original approval would stand for now. But Judges Andrew Oldham and Kurt Engelhardt said most of the rest of Kacsmaryk's ruling could take effect while the case winds through federal courts. Their ruling would have effectively nullified changes made by the FDA starting in 2016, including extending from seven to 10 weeks of pregnancy when mifepristone can be safely used. The court also would have halted sending the drug in the mail or dispensing it as a generic, and patients who seek it would have had to make three in-person visits with a doctor. Women also might have been required to take a higher dosage of the drug than the FDA says is necessary.

The administration and Danco have said that chaos would ensue if those restrictions were to take effect while the case proceeds. Alito questioned the argument that chaos would result, saying the administration "has not dispelled doubts that it would even obey an unfavorable order in these cases."

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Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz plans to introduce a series of reforms to change Israel's policies on abortion, making the experience easier for those seeking one.

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According to Dina Shalev, director of reproductive rights organization Lada'at – Choose Well, "Today, if a woman in Israel wants to have an abortion, she needs to appear in front of a committee and get their approval for the procedure." In order to be approved, "She needs to fall under one of four categories."

The first category, age, considers whether the candidate is under 18 or over 40 years old, and the second category looks at her marital status.

The third category examines the mother's health, like whether "the pregnancy can cause… serious health damage," and the fourth category looks at the fetus' health.

"If she doesn't fall under one of these categories, she can't have an abortion in Israel," Shalev explained.

She also said that although, "we're thrilled about this step," only the policies surrounding the approval board will be changed, not the process itself.

The questions asked by the committee could be altered to be "less offensive," and forms could be digitized.

"It's not changing the law, so women will still have to go through the committee, they'll still need the approval," but the small changes might make the experiences of women seeking the procedure easier, she said.

This article was first published by i24NEWS.

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It was one of the numerous efforts across the United States to restrict access to abortion and challenge the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized the practice nationwide.

Six states have recently passed legislation that limits abortions to approximately six weeks after the end of a woman's last period, before many know they are pregnant. Although the laws have not yet taken effect and several have been blocked on constitutional grounds, if enacted the legislation would prohibit most abortions once a doctor can hear rhythmic electrical impulses in the developing fetus.

Called "fetal heartbeat" bills, they generally refer to the fetus as an "unborn human individual" and recognize that human life begins at conception. This view is held by many religious individuals.

However, not all people who hold traditional or religious views on the matter agree and many get lost in the polarized "pro-life" or "pro-choice" debate.

While Jewish practices and laws are derived from biblical and Talmudic sources, "halacha" or Jewish law has been passed down for generations. Jews across different political as well as religious observant spectrums attribute various amounts of adherence to the traditional law.

Rachel Mikva, an associate professor of Jewish studies at the Chicago Theological Seminary, who has served as a rabbi for 13 years, says some Jewish texts argue that a fetus does not attain the status of personhood until birth.

Mikva lays out the issue of abortion in Jewish texts, below:

Although the Bible does not mention abortion, it does talk about miscarriage in Exodus 21:22-25. It imagines the case of men fighting, in a scenario where a pregnant woman has been injured in the process. If she miscarries but suffers no additional injury, the penalty for the man is a fine.

Since the death of a person would be murder or manslaughter and carry a different penalty, most rabbinic sources deduce from these verses that a fetus has a different status altogether.

The Mishnah discusses the question of a woman in distress during labor. If her life is at risk, the fetus must be aborted in order to save her. Once its head starts to emerge from the birth canal, however, it becomes a human life, or nefesh. At that point, one must try to save both mother and child. Jewish law prohibits setting aside one life for the sake of another.

Orthodox authorities allow abortion only when the mother's life is at risk.

Some Jewish scholars point to a different Mishnah passage that envisions the case of a pregnant woman who was sentenced to death. The execution would not be delayed unless she has already gone into labor.

In the Talmud, the rabbis suggest that the ruling is obvious: The fetus is part of her body. It also records an opinion that the fetus should be aborted before the sentence is carried out so that the woman does not suffer further shame.

These teachings represent only a small fraction of Jewish interpretations, writes Mikva.

Over the centuries, rabbis have addressed cases related to potentially deformed fetuses, pregnancy as the result of rape or adultery.

In contemporary Jewish debate, there are stringent opinions that regard abortion as homicide – thus permissible only to save the mother's life. Yet many in the Orthodox community have argued that abortion is equivalent to infanticide, while many in the Conservative and Reform communities have found it permissible for various reasons. Still, in the Orthodox community there exist some lenient interpretations which find justifications based on the woman's well-being.

In the United States, all non-orthodox movements have statements that support aborting the fetus, while some Orthodox leaders have resisted anti-abortion measures that do not allow for religious exceptions.

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