In April 2023, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird announced that the state will no longer pay for any type of emergency contraception or abortion treatment for sexual assault survivors.[1] While not surprising given the Iowa legislature’s aptitude at destroying the rights of its citizens,[2] the removal of emergency contraception for survivors represents another failure by the state to show respect and kindness to those who have been sexually assaulted or are experiencing sexual abuse.

 In June 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court overturned half a century of precedent when it dismantled the constitutional right to an abortion in the United States.[3] In a 6-3 opinion, the majority-conservative court left the fate of abortion access up to the states. In a post-Roe[4] world, it was expected and feared that Republican-majority states would immediately limit access to abortion. Not to be left out of the limelight for long, soon after Dobbs, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds reintroduced her “fetal heartbeat” bill[5] that would effectively ban abortion after the six-week mark.[6] This bill, House File 732, was originally signed into law in May 2018.[7] While abortion providers challenged this decision, the Iowa Supreme Court simultaneously wrote in a separate challenge that abortion is a fundamental right within Iowa’s constitution.[8] A trial court later applied this ruling to place an injunction on House File 732.[9] Since 2018, Iowa’s six-week abortion ban has sat idle until Dobbs emboldened Governor Reynolds to rear the bill’s ideologically unsound head once more.[10]

Four years later, in 2022, the Iowa Supreme Court overruled its earlier decision that abortion is a fundamental right under the state constitution.[11] In direct response to Dobbs, the State subsequently asked the trial court to dissolve the injunction on House File 732.[12] When the trial court declined to do so, the State appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court.[13] In June 2023, the Iowa Supreme Court chose not to reinstate the fetal heartbeat bill.[14] In the 2023 abortion decision, the Iowa Supreme Court retained the undue burden standard regarding abortion access litigation “with an invitation to litigate the issue further.”[15]

After the Iowa Supreme Court refused to uphold House File 732, persistent on the path of destruction, Governor Reynolds called a special session with the Republican-controlled legislature in July 2023.[16] When the dayslong session concluded, the Iowa Senate passed the fetal heartbeat bill 32-17.[17] In the same month, Polk County District Judge Joseph Seidlin relied on the “undue burden” standard to determine whether the fetal heartbeat bill creates substantial obstacles for those seeking an abortion.[18] Applying the Iowa Supreme Court’s rhetoric in their 2023 abortion decision, Judge Seidlin wrote that “This, perhaps, is the litigation that accepts the invitation.”[19] Under the undue burden standard, Seidlin believed that abortion advocates could argue the fetal heartbeat bill violates Iowans’ constitutional rights.[20] Judge Seidlin’s concern that constitutional rights may be violated facilitated his decision to place a temporary injunction on the bill.[21] Today, House File 732 remains blocked, and Iowa currently allows abortion up to 20 weeks of pregnancy with a required twenty-four-hour waiting period.[22]

While abortion remains legal in Iowa, the Iowa Attorney General’s decision to remove emergency contraception access demonstrates another step taken to decrease the rights of those able to become pregnant. In a statement to the Des Moines Register, Bird’s press secretary, Alyssa Brouillet, announced that the fund was being evaluated to determine whether its payment for emergency contraception is an appropriate use of public funds.[23] The Iowa Attorney General’s statement of “public funds” is misleading and plainly incorrect; funds for the program come directly and solely from fines and penalties paid by convicted individuals.[24] The Iowa Sexual Abuse Examination Payment Program was established in 1979 and since its creation, the program has never held survivors responsible for paying for their examination and any medication received in the aftermath of abuse.[25] Emergency contraception is incredibly important when it comes to treating survivors of sexual abuse.[26] Providing emergency contraception gives survivors an opportunity to reclaim an aspect of their autonomy that has been stolen from them – to not be subject to the pregnancy of a child born of sexual assault.[27]

Despite the state declaring its intentions to increase forced pregnancies and births through House File 732,[28] providing emergency contraception helps survivors avoid unwanted pregnancies and forced births. Forcing a survivor to bear the child born of assault can worsen the psychological and physical symptoms of abuse that the expecting mother experienced prior to her forced pregnancy.[29] Removing emergency contraception for survivors will unmistakably result in a greater number of forced births.[30] This effect is depravingly and depressingly comical in the face of a pro-life legislature and governor who claim to care about the rights of children.

Yet, in the face of this self-proclaimed indignation for upholding children’s rights by being anti-abortion, Iowa is ranked sixth in the nation[31] for the highest number of children in foster care. Iowa’s failure to properly care for the rights of children who currently exist is highlighted by the starvation and subsequent deaths of Natalie Finn[32] of West Des Moines and Sabrina Ray[33] of Perry, and the physical abuse experienced by Krystal Bell[34] of Ankeny and Malayia Knapp[35] in Urbandale all while in foster care. Children born out of sexual assault will suffer alongside their birth mother, as these children often develop poor parent-child relationships because the maternal capacity can be hindered by sexual assault.[36] These circumstances can lead to neglect and abusive parenting.[37] When a child is neglected because they were born out of sexual assault, it is even more likely that they will enter the foster care system where they will continue to be harmed by Iowa’s failure to properly care for its foster youth.[38]

The rights of those with the ability to become pregnant continue to decline in a post-Dobbs world. Forced pregnancies and forced births will rise as the United States faces a landscape in which the right to choose one’s bodily autonomy over government intervention continues to be interpreted as a farce.[39] Taking away a survivor’s choice whether to bear a child while stomping on their autonomy[40] after a sexual assault is cruel, unprecedented, and an embarrassment for the Iowa Attorney General’s Office.

Despite the apathetic message that the Iowa Attorney General’s Office sends its citizens by removing emergency contraception access, the importance of promoting bodily autonomy in the face of sexual assault cannot be undervalued. Bodily autonomy is a simple yet radical notion that individuals have the right to control what happens to their bodies.[41] In the context of sexual assault, bodily autonomy refers to the absence of consent and if applicable, the violative physical intrusion of one’s person.[42] Promoting bodily autonomy has been linked to preventing sexual violence.[43] Consequentially, any action by a state to decrease opportunities for survivors to regain bodily autonomy sends a message to survivors that their own bodies do not belong to themselves. Removing access to emergency contraception for survivors clarifies that bodily autonomy is nonexistent in Iowa; bodily autonomy is now synonymous with a state’s morality code.

The Iowa Attorney General’s Office’s decision to remove access to emergency contraception burns lifesaving bridges of aid and autonomy to survivors of sexual assault. Removing emergency contraception access to survivors will increase forced pregnancies and forced births. While the sweet tooth of the pro-life sponsored legislature and now Attorney General’s Office[44] may be satisfied, these “Iowa Nice” entities will be responsible for the future suffering of children born out of sexual assault who will experience neglect in their own homes and at the hands of the state’s foster care system.