Defunding Plan B for rape victims is not pro-life
Tiana Lowe
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From Senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley pushing the FDA to move oral contraception over-the-counter across to country to Governor Kim Reynolds pushing multiple contraception forms OTC within the state, Iowa Republicans are among the most radical pro-life conservatives, in the comprehensive meaning of the term.
Lest the Left accuses the GOP of simply weaponizing abortion to control women’s bodies, Iowa Republicans, who are also trying to move a six-week abortion ban through the state Supreme Court, usually try to prove that lie wrong. But the Hawkeye state’s new Attorney General Brenna Bird is up to something different. During an audit of victim services and compensation, Bird paused the practice of funding emergency contraception for sexual assault victims.
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Considering that the victim compensation fund comes from penalties and fines paid by convicts, there is no fiscally conservative argument for ceasing this coverage. And in the long run, there absolutely is a socially conservative rationale to resume this funding.
Emergency contraception is not mifepristone, the abortion drug currently in the news.
“Plan B” and other widespread forms of emergency contraception prevent conception by stopping or delaying the release of an egg from the patient’s ovaries. Although far less effective than oral contraception, Plan B is up to 89% effective at preventing pregnancy when taken within 72 hours of sex.
If the poorest rape victims cannot afford emergency contraception (usually $25 to $50), they are more likely than women who get pregnant from consensual sex either to obtain an early-term abortion in Iowa or else cross the border to Illinois or Minnesota. Abortion clinics in blue states do encourage “abortion tourism” and often fund the procedure for low-income women.
In this scenario, a rape victim gets an abortion, but if the victim compensation fund had just covered Plan B from the start, there would have been a nine in 10 chance she wouldn’t even get pregnant in the first place.
While regulations such as the six-week abortion ban temper the supply side of abortion, it is unwise to ignore demand. Statistically speaking, bans alone will not reduce the abortion rate unless women get the help they need to avoid unintended pregnancies in the first place.
The Iowa senators’ work in deregulating contraception allows market forces to bring down prices and women to make choices for their bodies before conception ever happens.
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Especially in cases of criminal sexual assaults reported to the police, emergency contraception can play a role as well, sparing rape victims the agonizing choice between terminating a separate life and bringing up their rapists’ children. (Iowa allows courts to terminate parental rights for a father of a child conceived through rape, although this also means that the mother will forfeit any child support.)
Iowa Republicans have led the pro-life movement by example thus far, giving the lie to the Left’s notion that the pro-lifers are mere “pro-birthers.” AG Bird should follow suit and swiftly reinstate emergency contraception coverage for the women brave and civic-minded enough to report their rapes.