Iowa Senate committee advances maternal health care bill

DES MOINES — Iowa lawmakers advanced a bill to fund anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, fund maternal and rural health care grants and provide state employees paid parental leave Monday.

The bill, originally proposed by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, covers several areas relating to maternal health care. A three-member Senate appropriations subcommittee advanced the bill Monday with only Republican support.

A provision originally in the bill to allow pharmacists to dispense birth control without a prescription was previously taken out by the Senate. Instead, they passed a similar measure — but with fewer regulations — as part of a different bill in March.

House lawmakers advanced that bill out of a committee recently, amending it to require a patient to see a doctor within 15 months of receiving birth control from a pharmacist.

Here are the key points of Senate File 324 as it moves through the Senate.

$2 million for crisis pregnancy centers

The bill would quadruple the funding for the More Options for Maternal Support, or MOMS program, created last year. The program is meant to provide grants to crisis pregnancy centers — non-medical facilities that provide pregnancy services, counseling and ultrasounds and discourage abortions.

The program was created and funded with $500,000 last year to provide grants to those facilities. The grants have not been provided yet, and the Health and Human Services Department issued a request for proposals March 31 to hire a program administrator.

The bill would direct $2 million and allow the grants to be spent on programs that assist new and expecting fathers.

Abortion rights advocates and Democrats say the non-medical centers lack expertise, accountability and regulations that medical centers that provide abortion have to abide by. They also argue the centers, often religiously affiliated, provide misleading information about abortion.

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Sen. Molly Donahue, D-Cedar Rapids, said she opposed increasing the funding to the program before seeing results from the first allocation of funds.

“I have a huge problem with the amount of money that they’re asking for without getting some data back on that,” she said.

Paid parental leave

Under the bill, state employees would receive paid parental leave between one and four weeks. A parent who gives birth would receive four weeks, while a parent who does not give birth would receive one week. A parent who adopts a child would receive four weeks of paid leave.

The bill does not name a specific cost, but an analysis of House File 578, which is a standalone version of the parental leave program, estimated it would cost $8.4 million.

Lobbyists who spoke on the bill were largely in favor of the measure, but some asked for the state to give more leave. Iowa currently does not provide any parental leave for state employees.

“We’d love to see that be a little bit higher, but it’s a step in the right direction,” said Mazie Stilwell, a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Iowa.

Obstetrician fellowships

The bill would direct $560,000 to a program creating family medicine obstetrics fellowships in rural and underserved areas.

The money would fund four fellowships for family medicine obstetricians in the state. After a one-year fellowship, the recipients would need to practice in the state for at least five years.

Thirty-five percent of Iowa counties are considered “maternity care deserts” by the March of Dimes, and access to obstetricians and gynecologists is limited.

“This is a good step in the right direction toward trying to alleviate some of the shortages we have in rural areas for OB practice,” Dane Schumann, a lobbyist for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told lawmakers.

Regional centers of excellence

The bill also would devote $1 million to create regional partnerships between rural health care providers to strengthen care in those areas.

Health facilities would need to apply for the grants that are intended to “encourage innovation and collaboration among regional health care providers in a rural area.”

Looking ahead

The bill will need to clear the full Appropriations Committee before being eligible for a floor vote in the Senate.

The House is considering a companion bill, House File 427, but there are two main differences: The House bill does not include paid parental leave, placing that measure in a different bill. The House bill also includes the provision to allow birth control to be administered without a prescription.

Republican Sen. Jeff Edler of State Center, the chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, said it was too early to tell what an agreement between the two bills will look like. Edler said he prefers the language the Senate passed for prescription-free birth control, which would place it on a list of medications that pharmacists can dispense without a prescription.

“We want to help Iowa women in every way we can, and I think both chambers are taking options to do that,” he said.