Brianne Pfannenstiel

bpfannenst@dmreg.com

House Republicans approved a bill restricting abortions Wednesday following hours of debate that was at times contentious, passionate and deeply personal.

"It was in 2003 at about 20 weeks that my son, Wayne Roland Holt’s heartbeat disappeared," said Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison, recalling how the umbilical cord had wrapped itself around his son's neck and his wife's labor had to be induced. "I held Wayne in the palm of my hand all night long while I wept. And I can tell you, Wayne Roland Holt was a human being — totally formed."

Holt was among the 55 Republicans who voted to approve Senate File 471, which would ban abortions once a pregnancy reaches 20 weeks and establish a three-day waiting period for women seeking any abortion. All 41 Democrats voted against it along with Rep. David Maxwell, R-Gibson.

The bill includes changes that must be approved by the Senate before it could be sent to the governor's desk.

Democrats argued the bill does not account for the wide range of circumstances that can lead women to seek abortions.

"We are typecasting women as unable to obtain the information they may need to make their individual decision," said Rep. Vicki Lensing, D-Iowa City. "You do not walk in my shoes, and I do not walk in yours – nor any other woman’s. So to presume that we in this legislative body can make these decisions for other women without knowing or understanding their reasons or situations for their decisions is, in my opinion, presumptuous, disrespectful and insulting.”

The majority of abortions performed in Iowa — about 94 percent — are done during the first 13 weeks of pregnancy, according to data from the Iowa Department of Public Health. The department does not specifically track abortions performed after 20 weeks, but found the remaining six percent occur between 14 and 28 weeks of pregnancy.

The bill as amended would allow an abortion after 20 weeks if doctors determine it's necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother. But it does not include exemptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest or for pregnancies in which a genetic anomaly makes life after birth impossible.

The House amended the bill to strip out criminal penalties, though it does allow women to pursue civil cases against providers who perform illegal abortions. It also allows physicians to be disciplined by the Iowa Board of Medicine if they're found to be in violation of the law.

The new three-day waiting period would be among the strictest on record. Twenty-seven other states have some kind of waiting period, though most are only a single-day restriction. Iowa would become the sixth state in the country to require a three-day waiting period for women seeking abortions, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute.

Rep. Joel Fry, R-Osceola and chair of the House Human Resources Committee, said he does not believe the waiting period creates an undue burden on the woman as some Democrats have claimed.

"We could figure out whatever hours you want to figure out," he said. "I believe that the key piece of this process is to make sure that we have the time for the decision to be made with all of the facts and have an informed choice being made..."

Many Republicans had expressed hope that anti-abortion legislation might go further and block even more abortions.

Some had introduced legislation declaring that life begins at conception, effectively outlawing all abortions. And the House briefly considered advancing with a "heartbeat" bill that would block most abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, often as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.

But similar legislation in other states has not survived legal challenges, causing some Republicans to push back. They argued a better way to advance their cause would be to focus on changes that could have an immediate effect. Seventeen other states have enacted 20-week abortion bans.

Fry said the bill approved by the House Wednesday is a "monumental piece of legislation that protects life."

"At this point in time, this is the bill that we have before us," he said. "And it does a fantastic job, I believe, of continuing to keep that conversation of life being sacred and important."