Abortion bill clears Iowa House subcommittee

DES MOINES - Doctors would be required to show a pregnant woman an ultrasound image of her unborn fetus before performing an abortion or risk criminal and civil penalties under a bill that cleared a House subcommittee Wednesday on a partisan divide.

House File 58, which advanced to the House Human Resources Committee on a 2-1 vote, would require a physician to conduct the ultrasound scan and offer to both show and describe the image to a female patient seeking an abortion.

Violating the provisions of the bill could carry a criminal penalty of up to five years in prison and a civil fine of up to $10,000.

Proponents said the measure is needed to help a woman make an informed decision about her pregnancy.

'There is something important and profound that happens when a parent sees their child on an ultrasound,” said Chuck Hurley, a father of eight and former state legislator who lobbies for the Pleasant Hill-based Family Leader organization.

Norm Pawlewski, a former state health official who now represents the Iowa Right to Life Committee and the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, said H.F. 58 is a 'health care bill” that protects pregnant women but also their doctors by making sure 'that what they're doing is appropriate for the age of the gestation of the child.”

However, opponents like Erin Davison-Rippey, a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, called the bill 'redundant” because doctors already perform an ultrasound as a standard practice without the Legislature inappropriately inserting itself into medical decisions that should be left to women and their physicians.

'It feels like an effort to shame a woman who has made a decision to end her pregnancy,” Davison-Rippey told the three-member subcommittee. 'This bill sends the message that we don't trust a woman to make decisions about her health care and that we don't trust a physician to provide appropriate information.”

Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames, said she believed the bill's provision would be difficult to enforce and would set a 'dangerous precedent” for the Legislature to move into private medical decisions.

'It's a shaming and it's demeaning,” Wessel-Kroeschell said in opposing the bill. 'This is not where the Legislature should be. This is moving us backward to believing that women don't understand what happens when they become pregnant.”

However, Rep. John Wills, R-Spirit Lake, said a precedent already had been set when House members approved a requirement that doctors and health practitioners provide information about breast density tissue reports to women who had undergone mammograms.

Subcommittee chairman Rep. Joel Fry, R-Osceola, said there are 'two patients” covered by House File 58 - the pregnant mother and the unborn child. 'I believe that child has, needs, deserves to have the opportunity to also have a voice in this medical arena,” he said.

Control of the Iowa General Assembly currently is split between Republicans, who control the Iowa House 57-43. and Democrats, who hold a 26-24 majority in the Iowa Senate. Bills dealing with abortion policy changes have moved in the House under the divided control dating back to 2011 but have stalled in the Iowa Senate.