Less than a year ago, lawmakers in Iowa forced Planned Parenthood to close four of its state 12 health centers — a move that blocked 15,000 patients from care. Health care access for Iowa women is already in crisis — and Gov. Kim Reynolds is poised to make things worse with a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.

Six. Weeks. That’s before most people even know they’re pregnant. The bill also prevents women from accessing safe, legal abortion in instances of rape and incest and criminalizes abortion providers. There are no exceptions.

The bill would also force women to go to extreme and costly lengths to get the care they need. If this dangerous bill passes, Iowa women may be forced to travel hundreds of miles and many hours to access safe, legal abortion in other states like Minnesota.

If Iowa lawmakers pass this bill and Gov. Reynolds signs it, it will become the most extreme abortion ban in the country — paving the way for other states to pass equally dangerous copycat laws. No governor has signed a bill like this before.

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Gov. Reynolds’ six-week abortion ban continues a long pattern of violating women’s health and rights in Iowa — and the effects have been deeply harmful. In 2017 alone, the state passed a harmful 20-week abortion ban and a provision that would require women to wait at least three days before obtaining a safe, legal abortion. Both of these measures take away women’s control over their own bodies.

In 2014, a whopping 89 percent of counties in Iowa had zero health centers that provided abortion. Then, less than a year after the state shuttered one-third of its Planned Parenthood centers in 2017, new data shows that STD rates are on the rise.

It’s clear that Gov. Reynolds is determined to take away women’s reproductive rights — and we must stop her in her tracks.

Supporters of the bill are hoping that this awful bill reaches the Supreme Court and overturns Roe V. Wade. Meanwhile, anti-women lawmakers have already filed dozens of anti-abortion bills in states across the country this year — and it's only April. That’s why we’ve got to hold Gov. Reynolds accountable and stop this unprecedented abortion ban in its tracks.

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