Planned Parenthood of the Heartland [advocacy website] filed a lawsuit [text] on Tuesday against the State of Iowa and the Iowa Board of Medicine in the Iowa District Court of Polk County [official website] over a recently passed abortion law, Senate File 359 [text].

The lawsuit seeks to prevent the enforcement of Section 4 of the Act, which makes it illegal to perform an abortion if there is a detectable heartbeat of the fetus. Planned Parenthood notes that this can be as early as six weeks since the last menstrual period. Planned Parenthood states that many women do not know they are pregnant until they are already past this point, with only 2 percent of Planned Parenthood’s patients performing abortions before six weeks.

The lawsuit states that the act violates the due process right to seek an abortion, as protected by Article I, Section 9 of the Iowa Constitution, and violates the right to liberty, safety, and happiness, as protected by Article I, Section 1 of the Iowa Constitution. The lawsuit also states that the Act violates equal protection rights “singling out abortion from all other medical procedures; and discriminating against women on the basis of their sex and the basis of gender stereotypes.”

Planned Parenthood is seeking permanent injunctive relief to prevent the enforcement of the law, as well as a declaration that the law violates the Iowa Constitution.

The Act that is the subject of the lawsuit is just one of the many more restrictive abortions bills which have been passed in various states in recent months. The Iowa House of Representatives had previously passed [JURIST report] a separate abortion bill last year that prohibited any abortions after 20 weeks and required a 72 hour waiting period before any abortion can be performed. In March Kentucky’s House of Representatives passed [JURIST report] a bill that bans abortion after 110weeks. Also in March a Mississippi judge blocked [JURSIT report] a Mississippi abortion law that prevented abortions after 15 weeks.