Gov. Kim Reynolds proposes over-the-counter birth control for Iowa women

Brianne Pfannenstiel | The Des Moines Register

Show Caption Hide Caption Feb. 2018: Iowans want to restore funds to Planned Parenthood A February 2018 Iowa Poll looks at how residents feel about defining life at conception and funding to Planned Parenthood.

Gov. Kim Reynolds said she believes contraception should be available to Iowa women through pharmacies and without prescriptions.

Reynolds, a Republican who is currently seeking election to a full term, first unveiled the policy proposal without much fanfare at a gubernatorial debate with Democrat Fred Hubbell Wednesday night in Sioux City.

More: Iowa Poll: Democrat Fred Hubbell narrowly leads Republican Kim Reynolds in governor's race

"I think this is another opportunity for us to help with access, especially in rural Iowa, and to give more choices when it comes to family planning," Reynolds told the Des Moines Register in a follow-up interview. "I think this is the direction we should go. I think by eliminating some of the barriers and making it available through a pharmacist, it will help reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies and abortions."

The governor is in a tight race with Hubbell, a former Planned Parenthood board member who has made his support of legal abortion and women's reproductive health care central to his campaign.

"I am an unabashed supporter of Roe v. Wade and I have been for a long time," Hubbell said during the Sioux City debate, drawing the night's only round of applause from the audience.

The birth-control policy the governor is now proposing may be designed to blunt that appeal, particularly among Iowans who oppose the abortion limits she has backed.

“It’s no coincidence that Gov. Reynolds waited until the final days of the campaign to make this announcement. This is politics and hypocrisy at its finest," Senate Democratic Leader Janet Petersen, of Des Moines, said in a statement.

"Senate Democrats passed legislation in 2016 that authorized pharmacists to prescribe and dispense oral contraceptives. As she knows, not a single Senate Republican voted for this legislation and House Republicans leaders killed it," she said.

Reynolds earlier this year signed into law a deeply controversial policy that would restrict nearly all abortions in Iowa. More than half of Iowans — 52 percent — say they believe the law goes too far, according to a recent Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll. That includes 54 percent of independents and 55 percent of women.

A judge has blocked the law from taking effect while it considers a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland and the Iowa City-based Emma Goldman Clinic.

Iowa policy would be modeled after two other states

But Reynolds said her contraception plan — modeled after policies in states like Oregon and Utah — is not intended to bridge the political gap after a divisive abortion fight.

"We can all agree that we want to limit the level of abortions and so access is a way that we can do that," she said. "I think it's the right thing to do."

The proposal also comes as new numbers from Iowa's Department of Human Services show that a Republican-led effort to block state funding to Planned Parenthood has resulted in a new family planning program that is providing far fewer services, such as birth control, than it had previously.

The program, which launched in July 2017, is paying for fewer than a third as many birth-control pills, hormonal implants and related services as its previous version.

More: State family planning services decline 73 percent in fiscal year as $2.5M goes unspent

Reynolds noted that she signed a bill this year that allows UnityPoint Health clinics that don't provide abortions to resume participation in the family planning program. The entire UnityPoint system was previously barred from the program because some of the system's hospitals provide a few abortions.

She said that change, along with over-the-counter birth control access, could bolster the system and increase access.

"It’s not a one-and-done, and we always need to look at the system and look at barriers and opportunities to make it better," she said.

Reynolds said that, if elected, she would begin work with the Legislature in January to draft a bill.

Only a handful of other states allow pharmacists to prescribe birth control over-the-counter.

Utah's plan, which took effect earlier this year, requires women to fill out a form assessing their risks of taking birth control before receiving it over the counter from a pharmacist. They are also required to check in with a physician every two years to continue receiving contraception.

Pharmacists are allowed to issue birth control under a standing prescription — the same type of order that allows Iowa pharmacists to distribute opioid overdose medications to anyone who needs them.

The 2015 Oregon law allowed trained pharmacists to prescribe birth control pills. Last year, the Legislature expanded it to allow pharmacists to prescribe injectable contraceptives.