📢 An amendment on my mind
Iowa Legislature poised to pass an amendment opening the door to state abortion limitations.
January 31, 2021 | Letter No. 28
On Friday, anti-abortion rights protesters lined the sidewalk outside Iowa City’s abortion clinic. If it weren’t for picketing like this, you might miss the Emma Goldman Clinic: the glare-proofed windows, the unoffensive stone-color siding, and the daylily beds out front — not so verdant in the recent snow.
Protesters have picketed the right to an abortion with the annual March for Life since the passage of Roe v. Wade in 1973. While this year’s was decidedly virtual, protesters in Iowa still found a way to do so in person, some without masks.
And dutifully, some Iowa Citians took up the call to respond:
I grew up in a red state with similar anti-abortion politics. I think there is a way that the picketer on the corner obscures the larger movement and the real moves being in made on their behalf.
Last week, the Republican-controlled Iowa House passed an amendment to the Iowa Constitution saying it does not protect abortion rights. It is likely to pass the Iowa Senate this year.
The proposed amendment:
"To defend and protect unborn children, we the people of the state of Iowa declare that this Constitution does not recognize, grant or secure a right to abortion or require the public funding of abortion."
While Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land, Republicans are eyeing the court they’ve stacked and seeing the potential to overturn it. If there is not a federal right to an abortion, it would be delegated to the states to decide on for themselves.
The amendment is important to anti-abortion advocates as it would invalidate the grounds used to support the Iowa Supreme Court’s 5-2 decision that there is a fundamental right to abortion in the Iowa Constitution. The decision threw out a 72-hour waiting period requirement passed by the Iowa Legislature in 2017.
"We conclude the statute enacted by our legislature, while intended as a reasonable regulation, violates both the due process and equal protection clauses of the Iowa Constitution because its restrictions on women are not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest of the state," Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Cady wrote for the court majority.
But with the passage of this amendment, the state opens itself to new abortion restrictions.
What might those look like? Maybe the 72-hour restriction returns to the floor? Or a fetal heartbeat bill? The House already passed a bill requiring doctors providing an abortion pill to give out pamphlets bearing scientifically disputed information on reversing the pill’s effects.
Where that 2018 court decision was called a “death knell for abortion limits, this amendment presents a doorway. One an anti-abortion rights party with the legislature and governor’s mansion locked-up is poised to make use of.
Your friendly neighborhood reporter,
Zachary Oren Smith
Take Five
❄️ It’s bad out there - Yesterday afternoon, thousands of Iowa City-area residents lost power for more than two hours. The winter storm sweeping across much of eastern Iowa this weekend is expected to leave behind several more inches of snow and create dangerous road conditions Saturday and Sunday.
📢 Who’s listening to who? - On Friday, 75 students called for more action on diversity and equity at the University of Iowa testifying to experiences of discrimination. This as state legislators held hearings last week for a student who said the college suppressed his right to free speech. I haven’t heard any plans from the legislature to speak with the aforementioned 75.
😷 Democrat tests positive for COVID-19 - Democratic state Rep. Amy Nielsen of North Liberty said she tested positive for COVID-19, the third announced case this year. The Capitol’s COVID-19 mitigation policies do not require legislators, employees, or visitors to the Iowa Capitol building to wear masks. They recommend but do not require disclosure of a positive COVID-19 test or contact with someone who tested positive.
🧓 Smiling for Grassley - In an interview with The Gazette’s Erin Murphy, Jeff Kaufmann, the chair of the Republican Party of Iowa, said he’d be smiling if U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley ran for another term.
“I will tell you this, that if he does run, I’m going to be smiling,” Kaufmann said. “But I don’t know. If Chuck Grassley does not run, then obviously my goal slides to a fair and neutral primary to see who is our candidate and then getting that candidate to victory.”
Charles Ernest Grassley was born in 1933, the year Albert Einstien came to the United States. He spent 15 years in the Iowa House of Representatives from 1959 (the year Hawaii was granted statehood) to 1975 (the year the Pythons released Holy Grail). He spent the following six years in the U.S. House of Representatives until 1981 when he was elected to the U.S. Senate. He’s been in the Senate for 40 years — a period which happens to be two-thirds the life expectancy of someone born in 1933.
🔦 QAnon believes - I haven’t read someone probe the optimism held so tightly by QAnon devotees. When Trump didn’t show up to the Capitol on January 6, that wasn’t enough to douse their belief in his coming. Kerry Howley deconstructs the narratives at play in this “bright rise of belief.”
Zachary Oren Smith writes about government, growth and development for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Reach him at zsmith@press-citizen.com, at 319 -339-7354 or on Twitter via @Zacharyos.