Abortion never was mentioned in the text of the Iowa Constitution. Nor was it discussed during the debates that led to the adoption of the document. While yet a territory in 1839, lawmakers prohibited all abortions, “no matter the reason.” And after statehood, in 1858, the legislature made abortion a crime “at any stage of pregnancy.”
“Abortion was so contrary to Iowa’s history, legal traditions and practices that until Roe v. Wade, the Iowa Supreme Court regularly affirmed convictions for performing abortions, without any hint that the convictions violated any provisions of the Iowa Constitution,” explained a friend-of-the court brief filed in a case challenging the legality of abortions directed by physicians through video conferencing.
So why is Planned Parenthood claiming in an appeal to the state Supreme Court that abortion is a state constitutional right?
“The real issue is that Planned Parenthood does not like the Iowa Board of Medicine’s decision to essentially outlaw webcam abortions,” said Matt Heffron, an Omaha, Nebraska, attorney for the Thomas More Society, a nationwide legal team that filed a brief in the fight on behalf of the Catholic Medical Association, Iowans for Life, Women’s Choice Center and others.
At issue is the procedure developed in Iowa in which Planned Parenthood would allow doctors to dispense abortion pills without having met the patient at all. They would have an online meeting, and the abortionist then would release electronically the abortion pill prescription.
It would have been an industry answer to the fact that so few new physicians are willing to be abortionists. Under the procedure, one abortionist could respond to abortion demands from women all over the state from inside of one office.
WND reported in August when a state board first outlawed the practice and the decision was upheld in court.
At the time, Heffron said the state board was “putting the brakes” on something that “could have been horrendous.”
The abortion-supporting Guttmacher Institute said abortion providers are dropping in number, by nearly 40 percent from a peak in 1982 to about 1,800 in recent years.
“If this practice of video-conferencing abortions had been allowed to stand, this would have greatly expanded abortion throughout the country and it would have greatly multiplied the ability of the declining number of abortion doctors to deal with all sorts of patients,” Heffron said at the time.
Operation Rescue noted that in 2013 alone, 87 surgical abortion clinics closed.
“The total number of surgical abortion clinics left in the U.S. is now 582. This represents an impressive 12 percent net decrease in surgical abortion clinics in 2013 alone, and a 73 percent drop from a high in 1991 of 2,176,” the OR report said.
“Of 87 clinics that discontinued surgical abortions, 81 are permanently shuttered while six abortion businesses ceased surgical abortions, but continued to sell that abortion pill. The figures do not include the 11 abortion clinics that were closed temporarily in 2013, then reopened later in the year.”
Heffron said had the telemedicine procedure been allowed, the doctors “could deal with those patients quickly and do that across the country.”
“They could be sitting in any facility in any city and teleconference with a patient almost anywhere and distribute abortion drugs.”
But Planned Parenthood took the argument to the state Supreme Court, and the Thomas More Society submitted its brief on behalf of state regulators who originally banned the practice.
“In this case, Planned Parenthood has framed the nature of the right as whether abortion is a fundamental right solely under the Iowa Constitution,” explains the brief.
But the abortion industry player “provided no basis particular to Iowa or its constitution for determining abortion to be a fundamental right … and principled analysis shows resoundingly it is not an Iowa fundamental right.”
The brief explains Planned Parenthood “simply is not accurate” when it claims the rights of abortion are “recognized throughout the Iowa Constitution.”
“None of those terms are mentioned anywhere in the Iowa Constitution,” the brief explains.
And during the state’s constitutional convention?
“A resounding silence.”
The brief says analysis “leads to the overwhelming conclusion that abortion was not rooted in Iowa’s history, legal traditions and practices.”
“In fact, it was consistently prohibited,” the brief explains. “Even Iowa’s current statutes permit significant restrictions on abortion. Iowa statutorily prohibits partial-birth abortion, further emphasizing, ‘This section shall not be construed to create a right to an abortion.'”
The original State Board of Medicine vote against the procedure was 8-2. The vote was uphold by Polk County District Judge Jeffrey Farrell.
“Planned Parenthood also relied on federal cases in an attempt to prove abortion is a fundamental right under the Iowa Constitution,” the brief continued.
It pointed out Planned Parenthood’s arguments relied on a ruling an alien does not have a substantive due process right to a driver’s license.
The argument continued: “Planned Parenthood bears the burden of proving the board’s rule is unconstitutional. The district court’s opinion as well as the brief filed by the Iowa Attorney General on behalf of the board analyzes at some length what sort of abortion regulations rise to the level of undue burdens on abortion. The regulations instituted by the board are well within what is allowed under the reported case law.”
According to an earlier WND report, Live Action President Lila Rose said the defeat of telemed abortions is good.
“It’s strange to see Planned Parenthood, who puts so much emphasis on not interfering with ‘a woman and her doctor,’ taking issue with the decision of a state medical board. Never mind that ‘telemed abortions’ literally put miles, and increased risk of complications, between the mother and the abortionist,” Rose said.
The Thomas More Society’s Heffron said Iowa was a test case for Planned Parenthood to launch the webcam abortions nationally.
“The fact that it can’t be used there because it’s medically unsafe is really a huge thing,” he said. “If Planned Parenthood could have said it was successful in Iowa, this would have greatly multiplied the abortion business all across the country.”
Rose said behind Planned Parenthood effort to push video-conference abortions is the fact that it’s a business that needs a continuous revenue stream.
“There’s one thing to keep in mind whenever Planned Parenthood raises a hue and cry over life-saving restrictions on the ‘choice’ to kill one’s baby: Planned Parenthood is a business, and abortion is its bread and butter,” she said.
“So of course this corporation is going to seek as many forms of abortion revenue as it can, and to vigorously defend those it has found – even though all of these are dangerous to mothers and deadly to their children,” Rose said.
Heffron noted video conference abortions are outlawed in more than a dozen other states.
