Reproductive Freedom and Maternal Health

Iowa continues to be a health care desert, especially when it comes to women’s health. We are 50th in the nation for OB/GYNs. Dozens of labor and delivery wards have closed in communities over the last decade. Attacks on reproductive health care have only made that worse as providers are unlikely to move to Iowa when they are not able to perform their full scope of practice. 

Iowans value the right to make their own personal health care decisions. Whether it’s access to contraception, IVF, or abortion care, I have always and will always stand up for reproductive freedom. Politicians do not belong in your exam room. 

In 2023, Governor Reynolds called an unprecedented, one-day special session to TAKE AWAY the rights of Iowans, and legislative Republicans passed a six-week abortion ban, one of the strictest in the country. I fought against the bill then and have called out the repercussions ever since. I will continue to do everything I can to return the right to reproductive freedom back to Iowa women. 

We need to change the balance in the Iowa House to ensure attacks on IVF and contraception don’t go any further. I have co-sponsored legislation to codify the right to an abortion in the Iowa Constitution, restore family planning funding to trusted providers across Iowa, and allow pharmacists to dispense birth control without a prescription. 

We also need to do more to support new moms and families. I have co-sponsored and voted for legislation to extend postpartum care to new moms on Medicaid from 2 months to 12 months.

I am a long-time advocate for the rights of women to make our own reproductive health care decisions. These rights have been tested and are under fire, and the attacks are only getting worse. During my previous term, I wrote a bill to restore family planning funding to trusted providers across Iowa. I  also spoke out against cuts to sexuality education grants and an unconstitutional 24-hour waiting period for women seeking abortion care. In 2021, Republican legislators took the first step in passing a constitutional amendment that would effectively ban abortion care in the state of Iowa; we need to change the balance in the Iowa House in order to ensure this legislation doesn’t go any further. Fundamentally, reproductive health care is intensely personal and all Iowans have the right to make these decisions for ourselves in consultation with our doctors, not politicians.