Abortion In Iowa
Abortion in Iowa is legal. 52% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. By 2012, the state was trying to ban abortion in almost all cases on a yearly basis.
The number of abortion clinics in Iowa has fluctuated over the years. There were 25 in 1982, 11 in 1992, 12 in 2014, and 8 in 2017. There were 3,760 legal abortions in Iowa in 2017. A #StoptheBans protest occurred at the Statehouse in Des Moines on May 21, 2019.
Iowa rejected millions of dollars in federal funding for Medicaid as part of their efforts to try to defund Planned Parenthood and its abortion services in the state in 2017. In 2020, it was reported that abortions in Iowa went up for the first time in decades—25 percent—with the loss of that federal aid attributed to the increase.
In 2018, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, Inc., Jill Meadows, M.D., and Emma Goldman Clinic (petitioners) filed a lawsuit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in state court arguing the fetal heartbeat law violated the Iowa State Constitution. Courts supported their injunction request, saying the law violated the state's constitution.
In February 2020, the State Senate passed a constitutional amendment to protect life, and clarify that there is no right to an abortion in the Iowa constitution. The amendment must now pass the House, the legislature again in 2021 or 2022, and a statewide vote before it becomes law.
Terminology
The abortion debate most commonly relates to the "induced abortion" of an embryo or fetus at some point in a pregnancy, which is also how the term is used in a legal sense. Some also use the term "elective abortion", which is used in relation to a claim to an unrestricted right of a woman to an abortion, whether or not she chooses to have one. The term elective abortion or voluntary abortion describes the interruption of pregnancy before viability at the request of the woman, but not for medical reasons.
Anti-abortion advocates tend to use terms such as "unborn baby", "unborn child", or "pre-born child", and see the medical terms "embryo", "zygote", and "fetus" as dehumanizing. Both "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are examples of terms labeled as political framing: they are terms which purposely try to define their philosophies in the best possible light, while by definition attempting to describe their opposition in the worst possible light. "Pro-choice" implies that the alternative viewpoint is "anti-choice", while "pro-life" implies the alternative viewpoint is "pro-death" or "anti-life". The Associated Press encourages journalists to use the terms "abortion rights" and "anti-abortion".
Context
Free birth control correlates to teenage girls having a fewer pregnancies and fewer abortions. A 2014 New England Journal of Medicine study found such a link. At the same time, a 2011 study by Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health also found that states with more abortion restrictions have higher rates of maternal death, higher rates of uninsured pregnant women, higher rates of infant and child deaths, higher rates of teen drug and alcohol abuse, and lower rates of cancer screening.
According to a 2017 report from the Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health, states that tried to pass additional constraints on a women's ability to access legal abortions had fewer policies supporting women's health, maternal health and children's health. These states also tended to resist expanding Medicaid, family leave, medical leave, and sex education in public schools. According to Megan Donovan, a senior policy manager at the Guttmacher Institute, states have legislation seeking to protect a woman's right to access abortion services have the lowest rates of infant mortality in the United States.
Poor women in the United States had problems paying for menstrual pads and tampons in 2018 and 2019. Almost two-thirds of American women could not pay for them. These were not available through the federal Women, Infants, and Children Program (WIC). Lack of menstrual supplies has an economic impact on poor women. A study in St. Louis found that 36% had to miss days of work because they lacked adequate menstrual hygiene supplies during their period. This was on top of the fact that many had other menstrual issues including bleeding, cramps and other menstrual induced health issues. This state was one of a majority that taxed essential hygiene products like tampons and menstrual pads as of November 2018.
History
Legislative history
By the end of the 1800s, all states in the Union except Louisiana had therapeutic exceptions in their legislative bans on abortions. In the 19th century, bans by state legislatures on abortion were about protecting the life of the mother given the number of deaths caused by abortions; state governments saw themselves as looking out for the lives of their citizens.
In 2012, the state was one of three where the legislature introduced a bill that would have banned abortion in almost all cases. It did not pass. The legislature tried and failed again in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, where they were one of five states, one of three states, one of five states, one of four states, one of eleven states, and one of eleven states respectively trying to ban abortion.
In 2017 in Iowa, the Republican controlled state legislature passed a bill that rejected millions of dollars in federal funding for Medicaid as part of their efforts to try to defund Planned Parenthood and its abortion services in the state. The state legislature was one of ten states nationwide that tried to unsuccessfully pass a fetal heartbeat bill in 2018. Only Iowa successfully passed such a bill, but it was struck down by the courts. The legislature had successfully passed a law moving the state's abortion ban to 6 weeks sometime between 2018 and 2019. This was struck down by the courts as too extreme. As of mid-April 2019, state law banned abortion after week 22. On May 4, 2018 governor Kim Reynolds signed into law a bill that would ban abortion in Iowa after a fetal heartbeat is detected, starting July 1, 2018. On January 22, 2019, a county district judge declared the law to be in violation of Iowa's State Constitution and entered a permanent injunction prohibiting its enforcement. In 2019, women in Iowa were eligible for pregnancy accommodation and pregnancy related disability as a result of legal abortion or miscarriage. Employers were required to offer unpaid leave if a woman did not have sufficient leave available up to weeks.
Judicial history
The US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester.
On May 15, 2018, eleven days after Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed SF 359 into law, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, Inc., Jill Meadows, M.D., and Emma Goldman Clinic (petitioners) filed a lawsuit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in state court arguing the fetal heartbeat law violated the Iowa State Constitution. On June 1, 2018, Polk County District Court Judge Michael Huppert entered a preliminary injunction which temporarily blocked the law from going into effect. On January 22, 2019, the county district judge declared the law to be in violation of the Iowa Constitution and entered a permanent injunction prohibiting its enforcement. In holding the law unconstitutional the judge cited the Iowa Supreme Court's 2018 ruling in a challenge to a different abortion-restriction in which the state's court of last resort held that "a woman's right to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy is a fundamental right under the Iowa Constitution." Anti-abortion proponents have said they hope this litigation creates a pathway for Roe v. Wade to be reexamined by the U.S. Supreme Court, but University of Iowa law professor Paul Gowder and other legal experts have said that it is almost impossible that it could end up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, as the U.S. Supreme Court does not review Supreme Court decisions concerning state constitutional questions.
Anti-abortion legislators have filed legislation to amend the state constitution to state, "that the Constitution of the State of Iowa does not secure or protect a right to or require the funding of abortion." The resolutions proposing to amend Iowa's constitution are SJR 9 and HJR 5 which were filed on January 24, 2019 and February 6, 2019, respectively.
Clinic history
Between 1982 and 1992, the number of abortion clinics in the state decreased by fourteen, going from 25 in 1982 to eleven in 1992. In 2014, there were twelve abortion clinics in the state. In 2014, 89% of the counties in the state did not have an abortion clinic. That year, 42% of women in the state aged 15 – 44 lived in a county without an abortion clinic. In March 2016, there were 13 Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. In 2017, there were eight Planned Parenthood clinics in a state with a population of 680,659 women aged 15 – 49 of which five offered abortion services.
On March 26, 2020, Governor Kim Reynolds expanded upon previous COVID-19 disaster proclamations to halt elective and non-essential surgeries. The following day her office asserted: "[The] Proclamation suspends all nonessential or elective surgeries and procedures until April 16th, that includes surgical abortion procedures".
Statistics
In the period between 1972 and 1974, there were zero recorded illegal abortion deaths in the state. In 1990, 302,000 women in the state faced the risk of an unintended pregnancy. In 2001, Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin did not provide any residence related data regarding abortions performed in the state to the Centers for Disease Control.
In 2014, 52% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. In 2017, the state had an infant mortality rate of 5.3 deaths per 1,000 live births. In 2010, the state had 23 publicly funded abortions, of which were three federally and twenty were state funded. In 2013, among white women aged 15–19, there were abortions 380, 60 abortions for black women aged 15–19, 0 abortions for Hispanic women aged 15–19, and 60 abortions for women of all other races.
| Census division and state | Number | Rate | % change 1992–1996 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 1995 | 1996 | 1992 | 1995 | 1996 | ||
| West North Central | 57,340 | 48,530 | 48,660 | 14.3 | 11.9 | 11.9 | –16 |
| Iowa | 6,970 | 6,040 | 5,780 | 11.4 | 9.8 | 9.4 | –17 |
| Kansas | 12,570 | 10,310 | 10,630 | 22.4 | 18.3 | 18.9 | –16 |
| Minnesota | 16,180 | 14,910 | 14,660 | 15.6 | 14.2 | 13.9 | –11 |
| Missouri | 13,510 | 10,540 | 10,810 | 11.6 | 8.9 | 9.1 | –21 |
| Nebraska | 5,580 | 4,360 | 4,460 | 15.7 | 12.1 | 12.3 | –22 |
| North Dakota | 1,490 | 1,330 | 1,290 | 10.7 | 9.6 | 9.4 | –13 |
| South Dakota | 1,040 | 1,040 | 1,030 | 6.8 | 6.6 | 6.5 | –4 |
| Location | Residence | Occurrence | % obtained by out-of-state residents |
Year | Ref | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Rate^ | Ratio^^ | No. | Rate^ | Ratio^^ | ||||
| Iowa | 3,766 | 6.4 | 95 | 4,020 | 6.9 | 101 | 13.8 | 2014 | |
| Iowa | 3,467 | 5.9 | 88 | 3,722 | 6.3 | 94 | 15.2 | 2016 | |
| ^number of abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44; ^^number of abortions per 1,000 live births | |||||||||
Abortion rights views and activities
Protests
Women from the state participated in marches supporting abortion rights as part of a #StoptheBans movement in May 2019. One protest occurred at the Statehouse in Des Moines, Iowa on May 21, 2019. Participants included August Mulvihill, of Norwalk, Iowa.
Anti-abortion rights views and activities
Activities
The Marriage Vow or "The Marriage Vow - A Declaration of Dependence Upon Marriage and Family" is a political pledge created by Bob Vander Plaats, a former candidate for Iowa governor, and the Iowa-based conservative group; The Family Leader, a public advocacy organization affiliated with the Iowa Family Policy Center, that he heads. The 2 most notable signatures came from Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann. Rick Santorum was the first presidential candidate to contact The Family Leader after the organization publicly announced the pledge. Michele Bachmann also contacted The Family Leader to sign the pledge, and became the first Candidate to send her signed document to the organization. Although Newt Gingrich did not sign the pledge, he wrote a lengthy letter in which he upheld many of the principles of the pledge including personal fidelity to his wife, respecting the marital bonds of others, enforcing the defense of marriage act, to support a federal marriage amendment, and to oppose any definition of marriage outside of "one man and one woman." The pledge was also signed by former Texas governor Rick Perry.
Footnotes
- ^ According to the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade:
Likewise, Black's Law Dictionary defines abortion as "knowing destruction" or "intentional expulsion or removal".(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgement of the pregnant woman's attending physician. (b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health. (c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgement, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.