By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)
After a 15 hour “special session” at the statehouse, the Republican-led legislature has passed a ban on most abortions in Iowa.
The bill is almost identical to one Governor Reynolds approved five years ago. There are exceptions for certain medical conditions and for victims of rape and incest, but most abortions would be banned when cardiac activity can be detected, around the sixth week of a pregnancy. The Iowa Supreme Court recently deadlocked on the governor’s request to lift an injunction that’s kept the 2018 law from going into effect.
Senate President Amy Sinclair, a Republican from Allerton said the law has been in limbo because of “judicial overreach…needlessly forcing the legislature to re-pass a law that is already been enacted, in an effort to protect the lives of every single individual across our state who has a beating heart.”
All Democrats present voted against the bill. House Democratic Leader Jennifer Konfrst of Windsor Heights said the bill is a return to “era of big government.”
“Women will be less free in a few hours than they are right now,” Konfrst said. “…If the state can tell you you have to have a baby, what else can the state tell you? That you can’t?”
Governor Reynolds issued a written statement late Tuesday, saying the bill provides “a clear answer” to the Iowa Supreme Court about the legislature’s intent and she plans to sign the bill into law Friday.
Republican Representative Shannon Lundgren of Peosta was the bill’s floor manager in 2018 and again yesterday. “There was nothing hypotheca about it then and there is nothing about that now,” Lundgren said. “This bill sets a clear standard where the state has an interest in the life of the child…When there is a heartbeat, there is life.”
Senator Molly Donahue, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids, said the bill will force women to make difficult choices. “This abortion ban is not preventing abortion,” Donahue said. “but rather just a cause of a heavier burden of women having to leave the state to access care or to decide to self abort in an unsafe way.”
Representative Brad Sherman, a Republican from Williamsburg, said government’s job is to protect the rights of every person, including the unborn. “If they’re not prepared to have a baby, they shouldn’t have sex if they’re that concerned about it,” Sherman said. “I will stand for everyone’s right to practice abstinence.”
Representative Heather Matson, a Democrat from Ankeny, said every pregnancy is unique and sometimes dangerous. “What you are dictating to women and doctors with this bill today is that their own well being or their own extensive medical training simply doesn’t matter,” Matson said.
Representative Luana Stoltenberg, a Republican from Davenport who backed the bill, said as a young woman she had three abortions. “I was told that it was just a blob of tissue,” Stolenberg said. “…Every day I live with the reality that I killed the only children I would ever have.”
Senator Zach Wahls, a Democrat from Coralville, said the bill is a “radical overreach” by Republicans. “Poll after poll shows that Iowans want to protect the freedom to make this personal decision for our own families,” Wahls said
After 11 p.m., some opponents of the bill who’d been in the Senate gallery watching the debate started booing when the bill passed on a 32-to-17 vote. Senator Brad Zaun, the Republican who was presiding over the senate, said the disruption “would not be tolerated” and he asked state troopers to remove the protesters.
The bill passed the House a couple of hours earlier on a 56 to 34 vote. Two House Republicans who support a ban on all abortions voted against the bill and one Republican senator voted no. All other Republicans present voted for it.
Planned Parenthood officials have said they intend to challenge the law in court, so there may be another drawn out legal battle before the fate of the law is known.
