On June 28, 2024, Iowa’s Supreme Court upheld the state’s heartbeat law which will take effect sometime in mid-July.

The decision reverses a lower court which applied a higher level of scrutiny to the law and put a temporary injunction in place to block its enforcement.

The heartbeat law will go into effect as soon as the case formally moves back to the lower court — which could be as soon as next week.

First Heartbeat Law
The Iowa legislature passed a heartbeat bill in 2018. While the law was being litigated, the state supreme court ruled in another case that abortion was a fundamental right and any law restricting it must pass the “strict scrutiny test.”

The strict scrutiny test is the highest standard of review and requires that a law be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.

Applying that standard, the state supreme court held that the 2018 heartbeat law violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the Iowa Constitution.

Change in the Court
The change in the court’s opinion from the first heartbeat law to today’s heartbeat law can be traced to a shift in the composition of the court.

As justices of the seven-member court needed replacement, more legally conservative individuals were appointed to the state supreme court.

Hollywood star and evangelical family man Kirk Cameron is now a Volunteer, a Tennessee Volunteer, that is.

The 53-year-old father of six recently announced his family’s move from California to Tennessee, a decision that comes after years of frustration with the Golden State’s radical policies and increasing hostility to people of the Christian faith.

Kirk and Chelsea have been married for 33 years and are parents to Olivia Rose, Isabella, James Thomas, Luke and Jack.

“It’s pretty clear that California has been moving in a particular direction for a long time,” Cameron said recently.

Citing “division” and a desire for a “healthy freedom mindset,” the Growing Pains star and his brood have happily settled into the South.

“Certainly there’s concern about politics and crime and the economy,” he told Fox & Friends.

“But I’m finding California refugees all over Tennessee and Texas and Florida — there’s been a flood of talent and creatives who have left California, frustrated that their values haven’t been reflected in the projects they’re working on.”

He also added:

“If everything hits the fan and there’s some serious economic problems and division going on, they want to be around people who think like they think, who are all about God, family and country,” he recently said.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is searching for 50 illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. by an ISIS-affiliated smuggling network, officials told media outlets last week.

In light of this latest border-related safety crisis, it’s more important than ever for families to educate themselves on illegal immigration and the human cost of porous national boundaries.

Background
The FBI reportedly began investigating the network last August after discovering one of the smugglers’ ties to the infamous terror group, ISIS.

At the time, investigators claimed the group had smuggled “more than a dozen” Uzbek migrants into the U.S. in 2023. Unaware of the potential terrorist threat, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) released them into the interior to await immigration trial.

In March 2024, FBI Director Christopher Wray mentioned the smuggling ring during a Senate Intelligence Committee meeting:

“I want to be a little bit careful how far I can go in open session, but there is a particular network where some of the overseas facilitators … have ISIS ties that we’re very concerned about and that we’ve been spending an enormous amount of effort with our partners investigating.” Declining to speculate on the group’s purpose, he continued:

“Exactly what that network is up to is something that’s, again, the subject of our investigation.”

A third federal court has stopped the Biden administration’s rewrite of Title IX, which redefined “sex” in federal law to include “gender identity.”

On April 19, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) released its “Final Rule under Title IX,” amending the regulations implementing Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Under the new rule, any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance must prohibit “discrimination” on the basis of “gender identity.”

The DOE claims the rule “prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance.”

But it does no such thing.

This radical change effectively abolishes the original purpose of Title IX: to provide equal opportunities for girls and women in education.

It essentially erases “woman” as a protective category by allowing any male to claim it as an “identity,” thereby permitting men to access women’s locker rooms, bathrooms and sports.

As a result of the new rule, various lawsuits (at least seven) have been filed against the DOE’s rule.

One such lawsuit was filed by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), representing parents, students and female athletes.