Where can consensus be found on abortion policy?

At the beginning of the month, I was at a CNN presidential town hall featuring former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in Des Moines. In a write-up of the event afterward, CNN staff noted that when the subject turned to abortion, Ambassador Haley “declined to draw a hard line around issues like a federal ban.”

It’s fine with me that she did — I cringe when politicians draw hard lines in either direction on the subject. It was Haley’s longer answer — that she would seek a consensus from both sides of the aisle on any potential legislation to restrict abortion at the national level — that’s had me pondering one particular question.

I’ve been saving this question all month specifically to discuss in this week’s column, as yesterday was the anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and declared that states have the right to determine their own abortion policies. Currently, some states have very far-reaching restrictions on abortion. Others have no restrictions at all.

The question is: How might my side compromise to help reach a consensus on reasonable abortion policy?

I define “reasonable abortion policy” as policy that recognizes both a woman’s right to make difficult and complicated decisions about her physical health and an unborn child’s right to a chance at life. To achieve that, hard-liners on each side of the debate — meaning both the “life at conception, no exceptions” folks and the “abortion on demand without apology” folks will each have to compromise. Without compromise, reasonable abortion policy will never become reality.

Abortion policy is sure to get renewed attention in next year’s session of the Iowa Legislature after the Iowa Supreme Court declined to dissolve a permanent injunction placed earlier on a 2018 law prohibiting most abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, usually around six weeks into a pregnancy. Most reporting on fetal heartbeat laws adds that many women don’t even know they’re pregnant at that stage. Since this is an opinion column, I’ll tack onto that that a woman not realizing she is pregnant is not the same as a woman not knowing how pregnancy occurs. (Statistics from the pro-abortion rights Guttmacher Institute show that 99% of abortions were performed on women whose pregnancies resulted from consensual intercourse.)

Within the last year (plus a day,) our highest federal court has confirmed that states have the right to set their own abortion policies. Within the last month, our highest state court confirmed that the Iowa’s 2018 fetal heartbeat law cannot take effect and that legislators will have to go back to the drawing board to further restrict abortion in our state. Each decision was met with backlash.

I don’t get all bent out of shape when a court decision doesn’t go the way I want it to because I respect the concept of judicial review as a part of our system of law, order, and justice. So I can’t help but feel more than a little disgust when others do. When the Dobbs v Jackson decision was announced on June 24, 2022, activists on the political left lost their tator tots and renewed their continuous cry that the U.S. Supreme Court and state Republicans are “taking away women’s rights.” When the Iowa Supreme Court declined to dissolve the earlier injunction against the fetal heartbeat bill, Iowa’s most ardent abortion activists on the right called for their removal, renewing their cry that the liberal left and Planned Parenthood want to take away an unborn person’s right to live.

Both claim the “taking of rights” away from innocent people, when in fact neither side actually wants to take away anyone’s rights. No, I don’t believe that most leftists actually want or intend to see anyone — including an unborn person — deprived of the right to live. And trust me — I know a lot of Republicans — they don’t actually want or intend to deprive a woman of any of her rights. Each side contends that the other side is incorrect, but “They’re incorrect” isn’t as compelling as “They’re evil, they hate you and they’re going to destroy innocent people,” so each side abides by the spirit of the latter instead of the former.

But whether or not you approve of how we got here, this is where we are. And in an era of zealous policymaking, I pose my question to any person: Where are you willing to compromise to pass reasonable abortion policy? In a landscape where each side has its “no compromise” blocs, the first — and perhaps greatest — step toward compromise is to actually be willing to do it.

The most ardent anti-abortion activists on the conservative right proclaim their mission of saving the lives of human beings at their most innocent and vulnerable stage. I wonder how many opportunities to save some of those lives they have squandered over the years by refusing to support or accept any legal standard short of “life at conception,” which defines life as beginning the moment the male sperm meets the female ovum, even before a fertilized egg can necessarily implant into the uterine wall.

While the simplicity of life at conception suggests a moral clarity, a previous life at conception bill submitted in the state legislature in 2017 would have outright banned some types of birth control, even if prescribed for non-contraceptive purposes such as treating serious and painful female reproductive conditions. And I wrote last year, it would have also prohibited a medication called methotrexate, prescribed for everything from psoriasis to cancer to transplant rejection and rheumatoid arthritis — even in kids.

Those kind of consequences make life at conception bills difficult if not impossible for to receive enough support even in a Republican legislative majority. That’s because they also make it difficult for some Republican legislators to retain the support of many of their voters. Both of my parents consider themselves politically conservative who consider unborn children to be people. But their disabled daughter is also a person to them. Had their Republican legislators in he 1990s boasted their support for a law that took away their 10-year-old disabled daughter’s medication, those legislators probably wouldn’t have received their votes for re-election.

One concept that some hard-liners (on both sides of the aisle) struggle to understand is that the legislative priorities of a voting bloc are only achieved if their candidates win. No Democrat in Iowa will ever vote for a life at conception bill, a fetal heartbeat bill, or even a post-first trimester prohibition on abortion. Yet in my years of political organizing, I’ve seen more than one disgruntled anti-abortion activist claim they’d sooner vote for a Democrat than a Republican who “compromises on life.” The absurdity of that is mind-boggling. And to many conservatives (including this one,) it’s infuriating.

Meanwhile, the liberal left is increasingly dominated by the narrative that abortion should be only a choice “between a woman and her doctor.” Like the life at conception argument on the right, it seems to lend a sense of moral clarity. In reality, zero restrictions on abortion, such as under laws enacted in New Jersey in 2022, really do make it legal to kill a yet-to-be-born child in even the latest stages of gestation without a compelling reason such as life and health of either mother or baby.

Proponents of restriction-less abortion laws might argue that aborting a healthy fetus in the third trimester is exceedingly rare. Proponents of stringent anti-abortion laws could argue the same about life-threatening fetal or maternal abnormalities that might warrant an elective abortion. In each case, “it doesn’t happen very often” is a terrible standard for regulatory forbearance.

In the spirit of reaching consensus, the liberal left would do well to consider the serious moral implications of unrestricted late-term abortion. For one thing, the justification of avoiding the trauma of childbirth would be a moot point, as abortion after about 24 weeks involves a process similar to that of giving birth. “The induction abortion ends with the start of labor and delivery of a stillborn,” reads the website of the Center for Abortion and Reproductive Excellence, which provides induction abortions at up to 35 weeks.

Essentially, the main difference late-term abortion and childbirth is whether or not the child gets to live. And given that the spirit of law includes the health and safety of people, it's OK for the liberal left to ask itself: Is there truly no situation in which the lives and limbs of unborn children deserve to be protected by law?

Just like many conservatives are hesitant about stringent abortion restrictions, I have no doubt that many liberals are hesitant about late-term abortion not warranted by life and health concerns. What both sides have in common is that their more moderate voices are often drowned out by the loudest and most unyielding voices. But in the wake of some of the most significant legislation and adjudication the abortion and life debate has seen in half a century, there was never a more important time for the voices of reason to be the ones that carry. Without those voices, reason will never see the light of reality.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com