The following statement can be attributed to Mark Stringer, ACLU of Iowa Executive Director.
"Make no mistake about it. This legislation is the most serious threat to reproductive freedom in Iowa in recent history. Politicians are laying the groundwork to completely ban abortion in Iowa, in all cases.
They are trying to do something that a majority of Iowans across the political spectrum oppose—remove the state constitutional protection that recognizes the fundamental right that Iowans have to access safe, legal abortion.
We’ve seen them try to block access to abortion in Iowa year after year, whether it’s to deny access to medication abortion through telemedicine, to require medically unneccessary trips to clinics and impose minimum waiting period laws, to try to create a six-week “fetal heartbeat” ban, or to take advantage of the COVID-19 crisis to limit abortion access.
Each of these attempts has been struck down by the courts, so now they’re trying to do an end-run by targeting the very constitutional rights themselves.
Decisions about whether to end a pregnancy, choose adoption, or raise a child are best made by the individual, in consultation with their doctor and loved ones—not by the government.
However you or I feel about abortion, it’s not our place to decide for someone else whether or when they should become a parent."
