Iowa passed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the industrialized world – and some think the state has moved too far to the right

Linda Madison is exactly the sort of voter Donald Trump relied on to win in the 2016 election. A 64-year-old Lutheran who lives in a small town in Iowa’s rural south-western corner, she was once a fervent Democrat. She even campaigned for one-time Democratic presidential contender John Edwards.



But, she began to feel Democrats lost their way, and switched parties. She and the two men she was chatting with in a parking lot in Atlantic, Iowa, all think Trump is doing pretty well. The stock market is rising, talks with North Korea could work out, Trump hasn’t messed up too badly, they said.

Instead, it is state lawmakers in Iowa that Madison now believes have swung too far to the right. A new Iowa law passed in May that bans abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which is usually at about six weeks. That is before most women know they are pregnant. The law, Madison said, is “awful”.

“We’re going to see a lot more clothes hangers used and women dying,” Madison said. “I just don’t go along with it.” The law won’t affect her, or her children, but she said she hoped her granddaughters would “have the choice”.

The law is now the subject of a court challenge, which proponents hope will take it all the way to the US supreme court and offer a chance to attack Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that guaranteed American women abortion rights. That is unlikely, given two similar laws in South Dakota and Arkansas were struck down, but possible, as Trump stacks federal courts with conservative judges.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bob Vander Plaats, leader of The Family Leader, below Donald Trump. He said campaigners ‘passed more pro-life legislation in 2017 than in any time in Iowa’s history’. Photograph: Scott Morgan/The Guardian

Iowa’s abortion ban is one of the strictest in the industrialized world, rivaling countries like Ireland, where abortion is banned in nearly all circumstances. It follows a raft of recent restrictions on abortion in other states.

“Supporters of women’s healthcare and reproductive freedom are just mostly stunned that this would even be a topic,” said Mark Stringer, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa. The ACLU is challenging the “heartbeat” law with Planned Parenthood of the Heartland. “It’s just so blatantly unconstitutional.”

There are 206 US counties whose citizens voted for Barack Obama twice, only to swing to Trump in 2016. Thirty-one of those counties are in Iowa. One anti-abortion campaigner, Bob Vander Plaats of Iowa’s Family Leader, proudly said campaigners “passed more pro-life legislation in 2017 than in any time in Iowa’s history”.

Now, some voters wonder whether they will keep their reputation as a “purple state”, or if the state’s hard turn to the right will stick.

“It made me worried,” said Ardyth Gillespie, 73, a resident of rural Cass county, where Trump won by 39%.

“It made me mad,” her friend Sandy Sothman, a 59-year-old former healthcare worker responded. “What we often hear is it’s a choice between life and abortion,” said Sothman. “And that’s not true, it’s a woman’s choice.”

Gillespie, 73, agreed, with the exception, “I would say it’s a family’s choice”. She added: “I don’t think it’s something people talk about.”

One pastor in a rural town she described as a “staunchly Republican town, and a staunchly religious town”, said women in her “moderate” congregation had brought their concerns to her. She described herself as “generally speaking … not pro-abortion,” but she was against the law.

The pastor, like many others in this largely rural state dotted with small towns, preferred to remain anonymous to avoid alienating friends and neighbors.

“I suspect a lot of what they say and think really has a lot to do with having control over women’s bodies,” she said about the bill’s supporters. “They’re frightened of giving women control over their own lives and their own choices.”

“There are people who are genuinely concerned, and genuinely feel abortion is a murder,” the pastor said. “I respect them, I see where they’re coming from.”

In a local bar in Sioux City, in the state’s conservative north-west, a set of regulars refused to give their names. Instead, they casually discussed how women who are responsible better “pee on a stick” after sex. Another said abortion decisions should be “50-50”, because men have to “pay the child support”. Two appeared to have reservations, but did not speak up.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jan Lunde hands out yard signs to Carol Preston of during a town hall meeting for Iowa Democratic congressional candidate Cindy Axne. Photograph: Scott Morgan/The Guardian

Iowa hosts the nation’s first straw polls, which cast long shadows on presidential elections. The political theory of the moment holds that a wave of Democratic victories will wash across the United States because of laws like Iowa’s.

Margaret Jarosz, a campaign manager for a Democratic congressional candidate, said she was recently door-knocking in a working class neighborhood, when she encountered frustrated female voters.

“I talked to like three Republican women, who said, ‘I’m done being a Republican’,” because of the law, said Jarosz. “As a woman, it’s a really big healthcare issue”.

Some rural voters, such as Carol Preston, said they are cautiously optimistic. “I have Republican friends who are not going to vote Republican,” said Preston. “There’s a lot of women searching for women candidates – this is the year of the woman.”

Others, like Jim Jordan, need more convincing.

“I’ve been a progressive Democrat my whole life, and heartbroken my whole life,” he said. “I appreciate the enthusiasm,” he said, but, “When you’ve been living in red Iowa for this long, you’re suspicious of blue waves”.