Des Moines, Iowa — A proposed amendment to Iowa’s Constitution on the subject of abortion isn’t eligible for the Iowa ballot until the 2024 election at the earliest, but the campaigns for and against it have already begun.
In 2018, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that under the state’s constitution, Iowa women have a fundamental right to an abortion. Earlier this month, at a gathering of 12-hundred Christian conservatives, Chuck Hurley of The Family Leader praised Republican legislators for proposing an amendment to nullify that ruling and asked the crowd to take a look at a card they’d been given.
The Family Leader, Iowa Right to Life, and other organizations have formed a coalition to lobby legislators to advance the proposed amendment again in 2023 or 2024 so it can be put to a statewide vote.
Jamie Burch Elliott is the Iowa director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood North Central States. She says Planned Parenthood is building a coalition of organizations that will oppose the amendment. Burch Elliott points to the increasing number of unintended pregnancies and abortions in Iowa after GOP lawmakers moved to shut Planned Parenthood out of the government program that provides birth control to poor women. She expects that to be one of many factors in the upcoming debate.
A Des Moines Register Iowa Poll taken this spring found about a third of those surveyed support the proposed amendment, but the poll also shows the amendment is favored by 55 percent of Republicans and opposed by 82 percent of Democrats.
In 2020, Louisiana voters passed an amendment that’s similar to the one being proposed in Iowa, stating that if Roe v Wade is overturned, their state’s constitution does not secure the right to an abortion. Also last year, Colorado voters rejected an amendment to ban abortions after the 22nd week of a pregnancy.
