Iowa Republicans have advanced a bill that would criminalize the death of an ‘unborn person’ – including an embryo – in what critics are arguing marks an escalation in attacks on IVF.
The new legislation, which still needs to pass the state Senate and be signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds to become law, would impose a life sentence in prison on anyone found to have ‘caused the death of an unborn person’.
The bill will likely reach Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds’ desk for signage. This is a prospect that has fellow lawmakers and activists on the ground bracing for a chaotic fallout that could include shuttered IVF clinics due to fear of prosecution, similar to what occurred in Alabama last month.
Iowa lawmakers did not say they intended to interfere in the IVF process, and the bill doesn’t mention IVF at all. But it also doesn’t provide protections for IVF, and a motion to do so was withdrawn from the proceedings.
Iowa Democrat Representative Beth Wessel-Kroeschell warned that the bill ‘puts IVF at risk whether you want to believe it or not.’
The Iowa state house advanced a ‘fetal homicide’ bill that would make destroying an ‘unborn person’, including an embryo, a felony. In Iowa, personhood begins at the moment at which the egg is fertilized
Iowa’s bill specifically amended language referring to termination from ‘human pregnancy’ to the ‘death of an unborn person.’
In Iowa, an embryo is considered an unborn person. In addition to Alabama, nine states – South Dakota, Arizona, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, and Texas – define life as beginning at fertilization, and, if Iowa and Alabama are true bellwethers, any of those states could be next to limit IVF in some way.
The current language of the Iowa bill states: ‘A person who… causes the death of an unborn person without the consent of the pregnant person is guilty of a class “A” felony.’
It also says: ‘A person who unintentionally causes the death of an unborn person… is guilty of a class “B” felony’ with a sentence of up to 25 years in prison.
Rep Wessel-Kroeschell said the bill could create the ‘same chaos’ for IVF services in Iowa as what happened in Alabama last month – after the state Supreme Court ruled that embryos had the same legal protections as fully formed people.
Republican Rep Skyler Wheeler, who co-authored the bill, said it was only meant to increase the penalties for killing a mother and her unborn baby, adding that his fellow legislators ‘are trying to turn this into another discussion.
He dismissed comparisons to the Alabama ruling, saying: ‘This bill should have taken two minutes. Sometimes you hear things, and you see things, and you just—you can’t wrap your head around the madness.’
Meanwhile, Rep. Jennifer Konfrst, the Democratic minority leader in the Iowa state House called it an ‘Alabama-style bill’. She told NBC News: ‘Iowa Republicans will stop at nothing to ban abortion, even if it means criminalizing people undergoing IVF treatments.’
![Gabby Goidel [shown right next to husband] was days away from an egg retrieval when the Alabama ruling came down. Nervous about what that would mean for her chances to have a baby, she and her husband packed up and went to Texas for IVF treatment](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/03/11/18/81542013-13183691-Gabby_Goidel_shown_right_next_to_husband_was_days_away_from_an_e-a-8_1710180399946.jpg)
Gabby Goidel [shown right next to husband] was days away from an egg retrieval when the Alabama ruling came down. Nervous about what that would mean for her chances to have a baby, she and her husband packed up and went to Texas for IVF treatment
![Amanda Zurawski, 36 of Texas [pictured right with her husband] has chosen to move her frozen embryos out of the state for fear that her state could follow Alabama ’s lead and block her from starting a family on her terms](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/03/11/17/81638407-13183691-Amanda_Zurawski_36_of_Texas_pictured_right_with_her_husband_has_-a-13_1710178723529.jpg)
Amanda Zurawski, 36 of Texas [pictured right with her husband] has chosen to move her frozen embryos out of the state for fear that her state could follow Alabama ’s lead and block her from starting a family on her terms
The Alabama ruling sent shockwaves across the state’s fertility clinics.
The ruling itself stated that embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) should be considered children and that destroying unused embryos would violate the 1872 Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.
During the normal IVF process, a doctor harvests anywhere from eight to 15 eggs from a woman’s ovaries and manually combines them with sperm in a lab for fertilization.
Not all embryos develop, though. Embryos can have chromosomal abnormalities or genetic mutations that prevent them from developing normally.
Some embryos may also have the necessary genetic makeup to develop into healthy fetuses, while others may not. Embryos that are not implanted in a uterus are typically frozen or destroyed.
But suddenly fearful of prosecution, IVF clinics in Alabama temporarily halted services and told anxious would-be mothers to sit tight.
One of those patients was Alabama native Gabby Goidel, who was just days away from her egg retrieval when the state court’s ruling came down. She and her husband feverishly called other providers in the state but could not find another provider. Eventually, they packed their bags and headed to Texas.
Ms Goidel, who has an unexplained genetic fertility problem, said: ‘Most of our embryos are not going to be genetically normal.
‘My hope would be that we could let those embryos naturally pass, but now it’s, “Do we have to save them?” I don’t necessarily want to implant a child that I know is going to miscarry.’
According to Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, an influential organization dedicated to electing Democrats to state legislatures, Iowa’s bill following the Alabama court’s decision is symptomatic of major efforts to undermine women’s bodily autonomy.
Ms Williams said: ‘In a country full of Republican legislators trying to outdo each other in rolling back fundamental freedoms, this Iowa bill shows that what happened in Alabama last month doesn’t just stay in one state.
‘Protections for IVF and other reproductive freedoms should be the law of the land. Once again, Republicans aren’t slowing down with their attacks on women and reproductive rights.’
At the same time, Amanda Zurawski, 36, of Texas, has chosen to move her frozen embryos out of the state for fear lawmakers could follow Alabama’s lead and block her from starting a family on her terms.
She said the process of IVF is anxiety-inducing enough on its own, but the ruling and subsequent closure of some clinics in Alabama have added ‘another layer of fear and anxiety.’
