Democrats Christina Bohannan and Ryan Melton are campaigning for Congress on opposite sides of the state and in very different districts, but they have one thing in common — firsthand experience running for the U.S. House. In 2022, Bohannan challenged the Republican incumbent in Iowa’s eastern-most congressional district, the 1st, while Melton ran in the […]
Abortion
Posted inCommunity/News
Unable to find a qualified contractor to run its anti-abortion ‘pregnancy resource centers’ fund, the state administers funds anyway; Republicans pass bill to make it legal retroactively
Starting in 2022, the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) began looking for a qualified independent third-party to administer a program that will use millions in tax dollars to fund privately run anti-abortion centers — which call themselves “pregnancy resource centers” — in the state. The More Options for Maternal Support (MOMS) program […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Rep. Hinson, Rep. Feenstra and AG Bird push U.S. Supreme Court to restrict medication abortions
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday on whether to allow a preliminary injunction suspending the FDA’s 2021 decision easing restrictions on the availability of mifepristone, a prescription medication used in medical abortions. The injunction, issued by a federal judge in Texas in April 2023 and subsequently narrowed by the Fifth Circuit Court of […]
Posted inCommunity/News, Statewide
GOP bill would require Iowa students be shown womb animation video based on anti-abortion ‘propaganda’
On Tuesday, Republicans on an Iowa House subcommittee voted to advance a bill that would mandate K-12 students receive instruction on fetal development based on the work of an anti-abortion group. HF 2031 would require the health curriculum in both public and accredited private elementary, middle and high schools to include a “high-definition ultrasound video, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa House Republicans advance a bill to cut qualifications for running a program giving anti-abortion centers millions in funds
In 2022, Republicans in the Iowa Legislature pushed through a bill creating the More Options for Maternal Support (MOMS) program, which would use tax dollars to fund privately run anti-abortion centers — which call themselves “pregnancy resource centers” — across the state. Gov. Kim Reynolds touted the program as an important part of her anti-abortion […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa Board of Medicine will consider rules for six-week abortion ban, even as injunction remains in effect
Last week, Attorney General Brenna Bird finally filed the Reynolds administration’s appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court, seeking to have the temporary injunction stopping enforcement of a new law banning almost all abortion after six weeks lifted. The Nov. 8 court filing comes four months after Gov. Kim Reynolds issued a statement saying she would […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Trump still has overwhelming lead among Republican caucusgoers, even though they feel he isn’t anti-abortion enough
Donald Trump has an overwhelming lead over every other GOP candidate for president in the latest Iowa Poll, just as he has in every other poll conducted this year. According to the new poll results, which the Des Moines Register published over the course of this week, Iowa Republicans aren’t concerned that the 91 felony […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Reynolds jabs Trump (indirectly) in tweet defending her six-week abortion ban bills
It’s a testament to the faith that national political reporters still have in the importance of Iowa in the race for the Republican presidential nomination that a short, passive-aggressive tweet from Gov. Kim Reynolds can generate stories in outlets like the New York Times. “It’s never a ‘terrible thing’ to protect innocent life,” Reynolds tweeted […]
Posted inCommunity/News, Statewide
Where do abortion rights start and stop? A quick guide to Iowa and its neighbor states
As of this article’s publication, abortion up to 20 weeks into a pregnancy remained legal in Iowa. But that was only because a state district court judge issued a temporary injunction stopping enforcement of a near-total ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy that Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law on July 14. Unless […]
Posted inEastern Iowa
Jury finds man who drove pick-up through a crowd of protesters in Cedar Rapids not guilty
On Thursday, a Linn County jury found David Alan Huston not guilty on two charges stemming from a June 24, 2022 incident in which he drove his pick-up truck through a crowd of pro-abortion protesters in Cedar Rapids. Huston had been charged with assault by use of a dangerous weapon — vehicle, an aggravated misdemeanor, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa AG Brenna Bird said she doesn’t intend to resume coverage of emergency contraception for rape victims
Less than four months after becoming Iowa Attorney General, Brenna Bird ordered her office to stop paying for emergency contraception for rape victims. The attorney general’s office had previously covered the cost of Plan B pills, and in some cases abortions, for rape victims since 1990 as part of Sexual Abuse Examination Program. The program […]
Posted inStatewide
The state can’t find a contractor to get Reynolds’ ‘pregnancy resource centers’ funding program off the ground
The new draconian ban on abortions that Gov. Reynolds signed into law on July 14, and which was stopped by a temporary injunction issued by a state court judge three days later, isn’t the only part of the governor’s anti-abortion agenda that’s currently on hold. The Des Moines Register reported on Thursday that more than […]
