Last week, Iowa lawmakers — once again — passed a six-week ban on abortion, set to take effect immediately. Now, abortion providers in the state have filed a lawsuit to challenge the ban, arguing that the law violates the Due Process and Inalienable Rights clauses of the Iowa Constitution. An Iowa court blocked the law, again, and history may repeat itself.
The legislation was passed in a special session called by Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has said that “the pro-life movement is the most important human rights cause of our time,” after the Supreme Court deadlocked over another six-week ban nearly a month ago. The cause of the deadlock was the recusal of Justice Dana Oxley, who was appointed by Reynolds to the bench in January 2020, due to a conflict of interest with her old law firm. For now, it is unclear whether that same issue will arise.
For abortion rights advocates on the ground, the back-and-forth has been exhausting.
“It takes an emotional toll,” says Sikowis Nobiss, (Nêhiyaw/Saulteaux), Executive Director of Great Plains Action Society. “I mean, this is a very scary time, not just for people with wombs—this is facism.”
Nobiss, an Indigenous Iowan of the Nêhiyaw and Saulteaux peoples, says she is one of few Indigenous women in the state doing reproductive justice work, and that abortion bans like this one are particularly heavy for her. The intent behind abortion bans carries echoes of the control that white settlers exercised over Native people through displacement and genocide. “It's not like we even had access to abortion on reservations in the first place because of the Hyde Amendment,” she says. “It’s like, ‘We don’t want you here, we don’t want you to exist, but we also don’t want you to have abortions, because abortion is sinful.’”
Nobiss spoke at the state capitol last week during a rally to protest the special session. “This is a problem of the colonizer, this is a problem of white patriarchy, and this is essentially, absolutely, 100 percent a problem of Christian fundamentalism,” she told supporters, emphasizing that Indigenous cultures are largely matriarchal and built on respect for women.
To be sure, such bans are consistently unpopular among the general public—recent polling suggests that a mere 1 in 3 voters support banning abortion in all or most cases. Only 1 in 10 voters say that they support total abortion bans. And last year, when six states put abortion on their ballots, the abortion rights positions won out unanimously. Recent polling in Iowa says that two-thirds of Iowan women say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
“[The passage of the ban] was a blow to democracy, it was a really clear demonstration of the unwillingness of our elected officials to listen to the will of the people,” says Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz, a professor in the University of Iowa’s Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies department. “But it was also a moment of profound resistance.”
Fixmer-Oraiz says she’s heard estimates of around 1,000 abortion rights protesters rallying at the Capitol last week, along with some 50 anti-abortion protesters. Those estimates align with what she saw. “It was also a reminder of how strongly Iowans support reproductive justice, how strongly they support access to abortion care and bodily autonomy, and that piece of it was a beautiful experience,” she says.
As a former Planned Parenthood patient and employee — and a current volunteer — the law carries personal weight for her, too. In the hearing in which the ban was discussed, Fixmer-Oraiz told lawmakers that she loves her family, and she had “two deeply desired pregnancies, and two long and difficult childbirths — one of which was life-threatening.” Her physician has told her that it would be dangerous if she were to carry another pregnancy to term, and while she is a queer woman who is not in a relationship with a cisgender male, the odds of unintended pregnancy are low, the fact is still a sobering one.
“The cruelty and the chaos is the point, and I think that’s what’s most infuriating to me,” she says.
Still, Fixmer-Oraiz finds hope in the reproductive justice movement, founded by Black women in 1994, as a solution. “This is a defining moment,” she says. “And I think we have an opportunity to build something better.”
