A personhood law that Iowa Republicans approved on Thursday night in the state House would criminalize “causing the death” of a “unborn person,” drawing the conservative Midwestern state into the national debate over rights to in vitro fertilization.
Reproductive rights groups and Democrats in the state argue that since the plan does not protect embryos developed via IVF in its present form, it might be viewed as criminalizing IVF procedures and treatment.
The GOP-controlled state House passed the measure, making Iowa the most recent state where politicians have acted in a way that might jeopardize IVF. During the process, embryos are created outside of the body, and many of them are often thrown away if they are not needed.
The vote in Iowa occurred only a few hours after Republican legislators in Alabama passed a measure meant to safeguard IVF in an effort to lessen the impact of a state Supreme Court decision that declared embryos to be children. The decision made by the Alabama court has raised more general worries that conservative policies intended to target abortion globally will also target reproductive procedures.
The Iowa measure would still need to pass the state Senate and be signed into law by Republican governor Kim Reynolds.
When asked if Reynolds backed the measure, a representative for the congresswoman failed to provide a response.
“A person who causes the death of an unborn person without the consent of the pregnant person” is “guilty of a class ‘A’ felony,” according to the present version of the Iowa law, and “a person who unintentionally causes the death of an unborn person” is “guilty of a class ‘B’ felony.”
According to Iowa state law, a class A felony is the most severe criminal act and carries a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of release. In Iowa, a class B felony carries a maximum 25-year jail sentence.
According to the law, a human “individual organism” is considered a “unborn person” from “fertilization to live birth.”
The law does not yet include any provisions that would apply to IVF either expressly or generally.
For instance, the measure omits wording clarifying that the phrase “unborn person” means to being “in utero” or “carried in the womb,” which many proponents of reproductive rights have said protects IVF. Proponents of reproductive rights claim that such words limit the enforcement of such regulations to circumstances in which the embryo or baby is being carried within the womb, as opposed to outside, as is the case during the first stages of IVF.
It was not specific politicians that sponsored the measure, but rather the Republican-dominated House Judiciary Committee. State Representatives, who are Republicans, are the committee leaders. The vice chair, Bill Gustoff, and the chair, Steven Holt, did not reply to queries from NBC News.
Democrats stated that the bill’s pursuit disregarded the national repercussions from the limits on IVF resulting from the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision last month.
Democratic minority leader and Iowa state representative Jennifer Konfrst said in an NBC News statement that “Iowa Republicans will stop at nothing to ban abortion, even if it means criminalizing people undergoing IVF treatments.” “Republican politicians went too far this week with their Alabama-style bill, and Iowans are sick of politicians limiting their right to choose.”
The law, according to Mazie Stilwell, a spokesman for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Iowa, is the most recent development in Iowa Republicans’ “far-reaching, long-term strategy to undermine the rights and well-being of pregnant Iowans.” She called the legislation “shameful” and “reckless.”
National organizations also provided input.
“This Iowa bill shows that what happened in Alabama last month doesn’t just stay in one state,” stated Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the national Democratic organization that assists in managing state legislative elections, in a nation full of Republican legislators competing with one another to roll back fundamental freedoms.
Reproductive rights organizations have said that the personhood measure in Iowa is one of many that, if passed, would be construed to limit IVF procedures.
The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that IVF-created embryos are regarded as children, which led to the closure of many IVF facilities in the state and a frantic attempt by politicians in the ruby-red state to quell the outcry over several weeks.
Ultimately, on Wednesday night, Alabama GOP Governor Kay Ivey signed a tightly constrained Republican-proposed measure meant to guarantee legal and criminal “immunity” to physicians, clinics, and other healthcare professionals that provide IVF treatment and services.
SOURCE: NBC NEWS
