Counties should help rape victims

Earlier this year, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird announced the state would stop reimbursing sexual assault victims for the cost of emergency contraceptives and, in rare cases, abortions. She insisted her office needed to “review” those expenditures.

We’re not talking about a large expenditure. Since Bird took office in January, there have been $2,600 in reimbursement claims for emergency contraception and one $730 claim for an abortion. Why it has taken Bird’s office eight months to review this spending hasn’t been explained.

Halting funding was a cruel and unnecessary move, creating even more anxiety for victims already traumatized by assault. We have little doubt that Bird, a fierce opponent of legal abortion who also joined a brief supporting a Texas judge’s ruling against the use of mifepristone, an abortion pill, will make this pause permanent.

On Wednesday, the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, restricted access to mifepristone. The use of a safe, effective drug has fallen victim to the politics of abortion.

That’s why we see it as good news that Johnson County is considering paying for contraceptives and legal abortions Bird Refuses to reimburse. Johnson is following an action from Polk County directing its Polk County Crisis and Advocacy Services to cover these critical costs. We urge the Linn County Board of Supervisors to take similar action to protect rape victims.

“I think it’s unconscionable the attorney general has stopped providing payment for the medications, Johnson County Supervisor Rod Sullivan told The Gazette’s Tom Barton. “What should be happening is the attorney general should be continuing to support these victims.”

Johnson County Attorney Rachel Zimmerman Smith is looking into what pitfalls, if any, could hamper the county’s plan.

And if counties act, we urge the Republican Legislature to refrain from stopping them help assault victims. In recent years, any time local governments don’t conform to the GOP agenda, lawmakers curtail local authority. So much for the principle of local control Republicans once cherished.

In the meantime, counties should move ahead anyway. It’s the right thing to do.