20-week abortion ban advances in Iowa House

DES MOINES — There's a 'lot of work to be done' to win House approval of a Senate-passed bill that would bar doctors from performing abortions after the 20th week of a pregnancy or face criminal penalties, a key lawmaker said Wednesday.

With Republicans controlling both chambers of the Iowa Legislature, 'this legislative session presents a rare opportunity to take action to reform abortion laws in our state,' Joan Thompson of the Iowa Catholic Conference told the House Human Resources subcommittee.

Senate File 471 was approved 32-17 in the Senate after being amended to include exceptions in cases where the mother's life is in danger or fetal anomalies in which the fetus is diagnosed with a medical condition that is incompatible with life.

However, Rep. Shannon Lundgren, R-Peosta, said GOP control does not guarantee passage of a bill. The Senate changes may make it harder to win support in the House, where an earlier version of the bill failed to win committee support.

'I don't think it will be easily passed,' she said after the subcommittee moved SF 471 to the full committee. 'We have a lot of work to do, but we are not willing to give up the fact that those of us that are very strongly life-at-conception feel like this is something we can do to protect about 50 babies a year in Iowa.'

Even supporters of the bill who spoke at the subcommittee meeting called for removing the Senate amendments making exception for fetal anomalies.

'Even though these infants are very sick, disabled, dying we do not support taking their lives,' Thompson said. She said Iowa would join 18 other states with similar laws that 'reflect the achievements of science and technology that makes it possible for infants born at 20 weeks to survive with increasing regularity.'

Along with several members of the House Republican caucus, Lundgren agrees that life begins at conception.

'I campaigned on that,' she said, 'but some of us are willing to take an incremental look at how we can start to save lives immediately.'

Others, however, said the bill would put lives at jeopardy.

'Putting criminal penalties in here puts women's life at risk immediately because trying to save a woman's life now potentially makes a doctor a criminal,' said Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames. 'I just don't see how we can possibly do that in this state and feel good about ourselves.'

Erin Davison-Rippey of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland raised a concern that the bill does not clearly define 'reasonable certainty.' Senate File 471 creates an exemption that would allow an abortion in the case of a fetal anomaly if there is 'reasonable certainty' a live birth would result in the death of the child or requiring life-sustaining procedures.

'Are we talking 100 percent certainty or 95 percent?' she asked. 'What if physicians disagree?'

American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa lobbyist Daniel Zeno said the bill will not pass constitutional muster because the abortion ban is not solely based on viability.

The bill also would result in fewer health care providers offering abortions, Zeno said, which would 'eliminate options for families and threatens not only the autonomy of women but their health.'

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