Iowa AG still reviewing funding of rape victims’ abortions

JOHNSTON — A monthslong review of state victims services policies — including the pause in state funding of abortions for rape victims — is ongoing, but a decision is expected soon, a spokeswoman for Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said Friday.

The policy decisions made as a result of that audit, including whether to permanently stop that state funding for rape victims’ abortions, will be permanent and will not require legislative action, Bird said.

Bird on Friday discussed that ongoing review, her office’s pending arguments before the Iowa Supreme Court on the latest legislation to restrict abortions in the state, and other topics during her appearance on this weekend’s episode of “Iowa Press” on Iowa PBS.

Bird in April paused the attorney general office’s practice of using the state’s victim compensation funds to pay for emergency contraception — and, in rare cases, abortions — for victims of sexual assault, while her office reviewed the policy.

Later that month, The Gazette reported that payments for emergency contraception for nearly 70 sexual assault survivors had yet to be reimbursed, according to a statement from Planned Parenthood North Central States, based on records from the Attorney General’s Office obtained by Iowa Public Radio.

The Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for an updated figure Friday.

“We are working on that audit and what the outcome of that will be. But you’re right, we did pause payments to entities like Planned Parenthood and others that were being reimbursed for abortions and for Plan B,” Bird said during taping. “However, those services still remain available under Iowa law to victims. It’s just whether public funds will pay for them.”

Bird was asked on the program whether, once the audit is done, that policy will become permanent. Bird answered yes, and her office later clarified that she meant whatever decisions are made will become permanent policy, but the specific decision of whether the state will cover the cost of rape victims’ abortions remains undetermined.

Abortion law

Bird said the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade paved the way for stronger restrictions on abortions to be considered constitutional by the courts.

Bird also declined, as some conservative and Republican Iowans have, to call for the impeachment of the three Iowa Supreme Court justices who declined to overrule a 2019 district court judge’s decision to block the abortion restrictions passed in 2018.

“My role here is to defend and enforce the law. And here in Iowa, the issue that we have before us is defending the heartbeat law, and I am glad to do that and glad that the Iowa Supreme Court took it up so quickly so that more innocent lives aren’t lost,” Bird said.

Prosecuting local cases

Bird declined to say what it would take for her to direct her office to prosecute a case that a county attorney declines to prosecute, but did say that such an instance has not yet arisen since she became attorney general after the 2022 elections.

Iowa Republicans’ sweeping legislation that reorganized the executive branch of state government included language that clarified the attorney general’s authority to prosecute any cases, even if a county attorney declines.

The attorney general has always had that authority by state law, but the previous attorney general, Democrat Tom Miller, who occupied the office for roughly four decades, operated under a de facto policy of not prosecuting local cases unless a county attorney requested his office’s assistance.

Bird is a former Guthrie County attorney.

“As it stands today, there is no case in Iowa that we have intervened in without the request of the local county attorney,” Bird said. “That’s not to say that it couldn’t happen at some point, but it would be an unusual situation. So far that kind of situation hasn’t presented itself. But if it did and it was necessary, that could be a possibility.”

“Iowa Press” airs on Iowa PBS at 7:30 p.m. Friday and noon Sunday, at 8:30 a.m. Saturday on PBS World, and can be viewed online at iowapbs.org.

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