Iowa House GOP passes 20-week abortion ban, adds abortion waiting period

DES MOINES - Declaring it's 'a great day for unborn babies,” House Republicans voted Wednesday to enact a 72-hour waiting period before an abortion and join 17 states in banning almost all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

After more than six hours of debate over two days on Senate File 471, floor manager Rep. Shannon Lundgren, R-Peosta, said the law would protect unborn humans in the same way the law protects the born.

'We treat born human beings for illnesses,” she said. 'We don't kill them because it's inconvenient or they're sick or unlikely to live long. We do all that we can to heal them, love them and make their lives comfortable for as long as possible.”

It was approved 55-42 with no Democrats voting for it and one Republican, Dave Maxwell of Gibson, voting no.

The bill sets up a three-day waiting period before any abortion, and says a woman must be given the option of seeing an ultrasound before undergoing the procedure.

If SF 471 is signed into law, it will make bad situations worse for women and families facing decisions about difficult pregnancies, said Rep. Vicki Lensing, D-Iowa City.

The measure would 'second-guess a woman's ability to make this unintended and difficult decision, prescribing an accumulation of information and prerequisites that she may not want nor need,” Lensing said. 'We are typecasting women as unable to obtain the information they may need to make their individual decision.”

The bill now goes to the GOP-controlled Senate, which earlier approved a similar, but not identical, 20-week ban.

Once reconciled, the bill would go to Gov. Terry Branstad to sign.

'I think we've done our diligence in pointing out why this is bad legislation,” House Minority Leader Mark Smith, D-Marshalltown, said. 'Now it's up to the Senate to look at this and the governor whether he's going to sign it.”

He acknowledged that given that the Senate approved a similar bill 32-17 and the governor has publicly voiced support, it seems a foregone conclusion to become law.

According to Planned Parenthood, 99 percent of abortions performed nationwide occur before the 21st week of pregnancy. When they do occur late, the organization says, it often is because of complex circumstances.

After Democrats argued Tuesday that the bill set up a 'backdoor” ban on all abortions, Republicans offered new language to supersede a statement that life begins at fertilization.

Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames, said she wasn't convinced the amended bill expressed strongly enough that access to birth control would not be affected.

'To ease the angst” of Iowa women who have a fear that access to contraceptives and fertility treatments could be lost, she offered an amendment stating nothing in the chapter could be construed as prohibiting the use of contraceptives and fertility treatments.

Her amendment was ruled not germane.

Democrats then turned the tables, winning a ruling that the amendment Lundgren was running - to replace the Senate language - was not germane. However, Republicans suspended the rules to continue debating the amendment.

Several Democrats, including Rep. Abby Finkenauer, D-Dubuque, shared stories - some personal, others about strangers - who had to make hard choices about difficult pregnancies.

'Today we aren't just standing on the floor of the Iowa House. We are standing in the doctor's office of those future pregnant women,” Finkenauer said.

By passing SF 471, lawmakers would 'tell them what to do with their body.”

Human Resource Committee Chairman Joel Fry, R-Osceola, called it 'a monumental piece of legislation that protects unborn life.”

He conceded it didn't go as far as some legislators opposed to abortion rights would have liked, but 'this is the bill we have before us and it does a fantastic job, I believe, of continuing to keep that conversation of life being sacred and important.”

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