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Following last’s year U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that reversed Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the authority to regulate abortion went back to the states.
The new Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird is reviewing victim services in her state and as a result, the practice of paying for “emergency contraception — and in rare cases, abortions — for victims of sexual assault is on hold.”
According to Fox News:
Federal regulations and state law require Iowa to pay many of the expenses for sexual assault victims who seek medical help, such as the costs of forensic exams and treatment for sexually transmitted infections. Under the previous attorney general, Democrat Tom Miller, Iowa’s victim compensation fund also paid for Plan B, the so-called morning-after pill, as well as other treatments to prevent pregnancy.
This decision by Bird coincides with conflicting rulings from U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas and U.S. District Judge Thomas Rice in Washington state.
Judge Kacsmaryk ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone, the abortion medication. Judge Rice basically ordered the opposite.
“However, the drug that the Food and Drug Administration approved in 2000 appears to remain immediately available in the wake of separate rulings issued in quick succession.”
“As a part of her top-down, bottom-up audit of victim assistance, Attorney General Bird is carefully evaluating whether this is an appropriate use of public funds,” Bird Press Secretary Alyssa Brouillet said in a statement. “Until that review is complete, payment of these pending claims will be delayed.”
In Iowa, money for the victim compensation fund comes from fines and penalties paid by convicted criminals. For sexual assault victims, state law requires that the fund pay “the cost of a medical examination of a victim for the purpose of gathering evidence and the cost of treatment of a victim for the purpose of preventing venereal disease,” but makes no mention of contraception or pregnancy risk, according to Fox News reporting.
The former director of the victim assistance division, Sandi Tibbets Murphy, said the policy to pay for emergency contraception has been a longtime policy in Iowa. She said the fund paid for abortions for rape victims in rare cases.
“My concern is for the victims of sexual assault, who, with no real notice, are now finding themselves either unable to access needed treatment and services, or are now being forced to pay out of their own pocket for those services, when this was done at no fault of their own,” she said.
Planned Parenthood North Central States CEO Ruth Richardson called the pause by the Iowa AG “deplorable and reprehensible” in a statement.
We can argue all day about whether or not abortion should be legal but there’s also the issue of who should pay for it when someone chooses to go that route.
In the case of Iowa, the money comes from fines and penalties paid by convicted criminals, not the taxpayers, and is made available for victims of sexual assault, not anyone seeking an abortion.
