Tag Archives: Abortion

U.S. abortion support groups put on more public face

A protester (L) and an escort who ensures women can reach the clinic stand outside the EMW WomenÕs Surgical Center in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. January 27, 2017. REUTERS/Chris Kenning

By Chris Kenning

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (Reuters) – Patricia Canon drives poor rural Kentucky women to distant abortion clinics each week, part of a national army of volunteers who are growing bolder even as abortion foes ratchet up opposition to the activists they have branded as “accomplices to murder.”

The Kentucky Health Justice Network, where she volunteers, is one of dozens of non-profit U.S. abortion funds providing money for procedures or covering travel costs to help women obtain abortions, particularly in states where Republican-backed laws have narrowed options.

For years, such organizations kept a low profile to avoid being targeted by abortion opponents. But now, as abortion foes have succeeded in shrinking access, advocates are working harder to grow grassroots support and taking a more public stance.

The anti-abortion movement won a victory with the election of President Donald Trump, who has promised to appoint U.S. Supreme Court justices who would overturn the Roe v. Wade decision protecting a woman’s right to abortion. Critics of the decision say states should decide.

That worries pro-choice advocates, including support groups in states where Republicans control legislatures.

“There is a volume and aggressiveness of anti-choice legislation and legislators who feel empowered by the administration,” said Yamani Hernandez, executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, which represents 70 funds in 38 states.

Kentucky is a flashpoint in the national debate. The state had 17 abortion providers in 1978 but one today. It could become the first U.S. state without any clinics this fall, when a court will determine whether its anti-abortion Republican governor wins a licensing fight.

Anti-abortion protesters will converge on Louisville starting Saturday ahead of a week of demonstrations. Some have vowed to broadcast footage of abortions on an 8-by-16-foot “Pro-Life JumboTron” screen.

In response, a judge has ordered a temporary buffer zone around the state’s only abortion clinic.

NEW RESTRICTIONS

Kentucky is not alone in making access to abortion tougher. There are six other U.S. states with only one clinic each.

The Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health think tank that supports abortion rights, said U.S. state legislatures enacted 41 new abortion restrictions in the first half of 2017, even after a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision struck down restrictive abortion laws in Texas.

Many more restrictions were proposed, ranging from waiting periods to 20-week abortion bans. The number of U.S. abortion providers dropped from 2,434 in 1991 to 1,671 in 2014, according to Guttmacher data. This year, Iowa blocked abortion providers from receiving public money for family planning services.

Medicaid restrictions and a decline in the number of hospitals providing services have also curtailed access, the National Abortion Federation said.

Advocates say poor and rural women are hurt most by such laws. The biggest impact is in the South and Midwest, where the number of abortion providers has dwindled. Nearly half of the 40 clinics in Texas closed after laws enacted in 2013. Only a few have reopened since last year’s court ruling.

The National Network of Abortion Funds met last month in Arizona to map a strategy that in part aims to open 10 new support fund programs across the country, expand its network of more than 2,000 volunteers and leverage rising donations to fill more than 100,000 annual requests for financial or travel aid, Hernandez said.

The groups spent roughly $3.5 million to aid abortion access in 2015, she said, the latest year for which data was available.

Kentucky Health Justice leaders hope to double volunteers and funding. Fund Texas Choice, an abortion travel aid group formed in 2014, and Arkansas Abortion Support Network, opened a year ago, are also among those working to expand.

The abortion support groups face fierce opposition, especially from religious groups. Joseph Spurgeon, an Indiana pastor and activist with the fundamentalist Christian group Operation Save America, called abortion access volunteers “accomplices to murder.”

Such rhetoric has not stopped some support groups from taking a more public stance resisting pressures to curtail abortion access.

“When we started two years ago, a lawyer told us to make sure your mission is kind of vague, don’t use the A-word,” said Maia Elkana, who started Missouri’s Gateway Women’s Access Fund several years ago. “We’re a lot more out there now.”

(Reporting by Chris Kenning, Editing by Ben Klayman and David Gregorio)

Abortion rights groups sue Texas to block procedure ban

FILE PHOTO: Texas governor Greg Abbott speaks during an interview on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, U.S. on July 14, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

By Chris Kenning

(Reuters) – Abortion rights groups filed a lawsuit on Thursday seeking to block a Texas law that bans the most common method of second-trimester abortion which critics argue erodes women’s rights.

The challenge, which came six weeks after the state’s governor signed the law, was the latest salvo in a battle over state laws enacted by Republican-controlled state legislatures that advocates say limit access to abortion.

“The law we challenged today in Texas is part of a nationwide scheme to undermine these constitutional rights and ban abortion one restriction at a time,” Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Austin by Texas abortion provider Whole Woman’s Health, Planned Parenthood groups and others.

The suit, which names Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and others as defendants, seeks an injunction and a ruling that the law is unconstitutional.

Paxton declined to comment on the challenge.

Anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life last month praised the legislation, calling it the “most significant pro-life victory” of the state’s legislative session.

The lawsuit targets a portion of the law – known as Senate Bill 8, which is set to go into effect on Sept. 1 – that bans dilation and evacuation abortion procedures.

The Texas law refers to the procedure as “dismemberment abortion,” in which a combination of suction and forceps are used to bring tissue through the cervix.

Opponents of the law say that after about 15 weeks of pregnancy it is the safest method of abortion.

Seven other U.S. states have approved similar bans, prompting legal challenges that prevented the bans from taking effect in Louisiana, Kansas and Oklahoma, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Last year, Whole Woman’s Health led a legal fight that ended in the U.S. Supreme Court striking down a Texas abortion law that had shuttered nearly half the state’s clinics by imposing strict regulations on doctors and facilities.

The latest Texas law, signed in June by the state’s Republican Governor Greg Abbott, also requires abortion providers to dispose of aborted fetal tissue through burial or cremation. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit intend to challenge that provision as well.

The state law was enacted despite the fact that U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks in Austin put a temporary halt on a similar state regulation on fetal tissue disposal in January.

(Reporting by Chris Kenning; editing by Daniel Wallis, G Crosse)

Judge halts Indiana abortion law targeting minors

FILE PHOTO: Healthcare activists with Planned Parenthood and the Center for American Progress pass by the Supreme Court as they protest in opposition to the Senate Republican healthcare bill on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 28, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

By Chris Kenning

(Reuters) – Indiana may appeal a U.S. court ruling that blocked parts of the state’s latest abortion law that critics said would deter girls under 18 from getting an abortion without parental approval, the state attorney general’s office said on Thursday.

U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Evans Barker issued a preliminary injunction late on Wednesday against portions of measure signed in April by Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb.

Indiana law already required parental consent for minors unless a judge provided a waiver known as a “judicial bypass.” The new law allowed the judge to notify parents if the waiver is granted, and was scheduled to take effect July 1.

Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky and the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana sued to stop the law in May, arguing it created an unconstitutional burden on minors and would create a chilling effect.

Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill is reviewing the ruling to determine whether to appeal, spokesman Corey Elliot said in an interview.

“Wednesday’s injunction essentially encourages a minor to go it alone through the emotionally and physically overwhelming procedure of aborting a human being,” Hill said in a statement.

“We will always support the authority of parents to know what is going on with their children.”

The judge also blocked provisions that barred abortion clinics from talking with teens about options in other states, and more stringent identification requirements for parents before their child gets an abortion.

“This decision affirms that the state must continue to provide a safe alternative for young women who – whatever their circumstances – are unable to talk to their parents about this difficult and personal decision,” ACLU of Indiana Legal Director Ken Falk said in a statement.

The Indiana State Department of Health recorded 244 abortions in 2015 of girls aged 10 to 17, roughly 3 percent of the state total.

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that a minor who is unable or unwilling to obtain parental consent for an abortion must be allowed to proceed if a judge determines that she is sufficiently mature to make the decision herself or that an abortion is in her best interest, the ACLU said.

(Reporting by Chris Kenning; Editing by Richard Chang)

Missouri governor calls special session on abortion

Missouri Governor Eric Greitens seen at an industrial site in this undated photo from his social media site made available May 30, 2017. Office of the Missouri Governor/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVE. MANDATORY CREDIT.

By Chris Kenning

(Reuters) – Missouri’s Republican governor on Wednesday said he will convene a special legislative session next week to consider new abortion regulations and counter a local St. Louis law he said made it an “abortion sanctuary city.”

The session, set to start on Monday, will seek stricter regulations on abortion clinics, including requiring annual inspections and that clinics adopt plans for potential medical complications, Governor Eric Greitens said in a statement.

That came in response to a federal judge’s ruling in April that blocked requirements for clinics to meet standards for surgical centers and for doctors to have hospital privileges.

Greitens said he also wants to target an ordinance approved by St. Louis aldermen in February banning employers and landlords from discriminating against women who have had an abortion, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper.

The Missouri legislative session ended in May without approving a proposal to nullify the ordinance, which critics said would force groups that oppose abortion to sanction it and could threaten the work of anti-abortion pregnancy resource centers.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis in late May sued to overturn the ordinance.

“Politicians are trying to make it illegal, for example, for pro-life organizations to say that they just want to hire pro-life Missourians,” Greitens said in a statement.

Allison Dreith, executive director of the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri, denounced the governor’s move.

“Make no mistake about it. The intent behind the governor’s actions is to shame women for their personal medical decisions and make basic reproductive health care harder to access,” she said in a statement.

(Reporting by Chris Kenning; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Delaware House votes to guarantee abortion rights, in stance against Trump

FILE PHOTO -- A woman holds a sign in the rain as abortion rights protestors arrive to prepare for a counter protest against March for Life anti-abortion demonstrators on the 39th anniversary of the Roe vs Wade decision, in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, January 23, 2012. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File PhotoFILE PHOTO -- A woman holds a sign in the rain as abortion rights protestors arrive to prepare for a counter protest against March for Life anti-abortion demonstrators on the 39th anniversary of the Roe vs Wade decision, in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, January 23, 2012. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

By Barbara Goldberg

(Reuters) – The Delaware legislature on Tuesday approved a bill that would guarantee abortion access, taking the stance after President Donald Trump pledged to upend the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows the procedure nationally.

Delaware’s legislation aims to codify at the state level the provisions of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that protects a woman’s right to abortion.

Trump, a Republican whose election was backed by anti-abortion groups, has promised to appoint justices to the nation’s top court who would overturn Roe v. Wade and let states decide whether to legalize abortion.

The Delaware state House, after more than five hours of debate and discussion, voted 22 to 16 on Tuesday to approve the measure, according to the website for the state legislature. The measure had already passed in the state Senate.

Both chambers of the Delaware legislature are controlled by Democrats, and Governor John Carney Jr. also is a Democrat.

Passage of the bill through the House positions Delaware to potentially become the first state to guarantee access to abortion since Trump was elected president.

Carney, who has been following debate on the bill, has not yet said if he will sign it into law, his spokeswoman Jessica Borcky said.

“But the governor supports the rights and protections afforded women under Roe v. Wade,” Borcky said.

Abortion opponents lobbied against the legislation, concerned it could turn Delaware into “a late-term abortion haven,” said Delaware Right to Life spokeswoman Moira Sheridan. Her group plans to take its fight to the governor’s office.

“We will exert the same pressure upon Governor Carney, a Catholic, to uphold the sanctity of life for those innocent unborn children whose lives depend upon his vetoing this radical bill,” Sheridan said.

A bill to support abortion rights was approved by the Illinois legislature in May but the state’s Republican governor, Bruce Rauner, has vowed to veto it. In January, New York’s Assembly adopted legislation similar to Delaware’s, but it has stalled in the Senate.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Tom Brown)

Delaware House set for final vote on abortion rights

By Barbara Goldberg

(Reuters) – The Delaware House of Representatives was poised to vote on Tuesday on a Senate-approved bill that would guarantee abortion access after U.S. President Donald Trump has pledged to upend the ruling that legalizes the procedure nationally.

Delaware’s legislation aims to codify at the state level the provisions of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that protects a woman’s right to abortion.

Trump, a Republican whose election was backed by anti-abortion groups, has promised to appoint justices to the nation’s top court who would overturn Roe v. Wade and let states decide whether to legalize abortion.

Both chambers of the Delaware legislature are controlled by Democrats, and Governor John Carney Jr. also is a Democrat.

Passage of the bill through the House could position Delaware to become the first state to guarantee access to abortion since Trump was elected president.

A bill to support abortion rights was approved by the Illinois legislature in May but the state’s Republican governor, Bruce Rauner, has vowed to veto it. In January, New York’s Assembly adopted legislation similar to Delaware’s, but it has stalled in the Senate.

Carney has been following debate on the bill and has not yet said if he will sign it into law, said his spokeswoman Jessica Borcky.

“But the governor supports the rights and protections afforded women under Roe v. Wade,” Borcky said.

If the bill clears the House and is sent to the governor, he must sign or veto it within 10 days, or the measure automatically becomes law.

Abortion opponents lobbied against the legislation, concerned it could turn Delaware into “a late-term abortion haven,” said Delaware Right to Life spokeswoman Moira Sheridan. If it passes, the group will take its fight to the governor’s office, she said.

“We will exert the same pressure upon Governor Carney, a Catholic, to uphold the sanctity of life for those innocent unborn children whose lives depend upon his vetoing this radical bill,” Sheridan said.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Planned Parenthood to close four Iowa clinics after cuts

FILE PHOTO - Iowa Governor Terry Branstad arrives to testify before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing on his nomination to be U.S. ambassador to China at Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., U.S. on May 2, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

By Chris Kenning

(Reuters) – Planned Parenthood said on Thursday it would shutter four of its 12 clinics in Iowa as a result of a measure backed by Republican Governor Terry Branstad that blocks public money for family planning services to abortion providers.

Health centers in Burlington, Keokuk and Sioux City will close on June 30 and one in Quad Cities soon after as a result of losing $2 million in funds under the new measure, said Susan Allen, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland. The four clinics served 14,676 patients in the last three years, she said, including many rural and poor women.

“It will be devastating,” Allen said.

The closures marked the latest fallout from a continuing push by Republicans, including President Donald Trump, to yank funding from Planned Parenthood. Many have long opposed the organization, some on religious grounds, because its healthcare services include abortions, although it receives no federal funding for abortions, as stipulated by federal law.

The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives included such a defunding measure as part of the American Health Care Act, the bill aimed at replacing Obamacare.

Iowa’s Republican-led legislature agreed in its recent budget to discontinue a federal Medicaid family planning program and replace it with a state program that bars funding to organizations that provide abortions or maintain facilities where abortions are carried out. The move cost the state about $3 million.

Texas in 2011 made a similar move that has reduced funding. A state report in 2015 found that nearly 30,000 fewer women received birth control, cancer screenings and other care as a result.

A coalition of 35 Iowa groups that oppose abortion have previously argued that funding for family planning indirectly subsidizes abortions.

“The pro-life movement is making tremendous strides in changing the hearts and minds, to return to a culture that once again respects human life,” said Ben Hammes, a spokesman for Branstad, who said there were 2,400 doctors, nurses and clinics around the state for family planning that do not provide abortions.

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland said it will continue to operate eight clinics in Iowa. They provide services including cancer screenings, birth control, STD testing and annual checkups.

The group said in a tweet on Thursday that politicians driven more by personal beliefs than facts were hurting access to women’s health care.

“The devastation in Iowa is a sign of what could be next for the rest of the nation,” Danielle Wells, an official at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in an email.

(Reporting by Chris Kenning; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Illinois bill expands abortion coverage, faces governor’s veto

FILE PHOTO: Illinois Gov-elect Bruce Rauner speaks to the media after a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama and other Governor-elects from seven U.S. states at the White House in Washington December 5, 2014. REUTERS/Larry Downing/File Photo

By Timothy Mclaughlin

CHICAGO (Reuters) – An Illinois bill that expands state-funded coverage of abortions for low-income residents and state employees passed the Democratic-controlled Senate on Wednesday but faces a likely veto by the state’s Republican governor.

The measure, which passed the Senate 33-22, also aims to keep abortions legal in Illinois if the U.S. Supreme Court follows President Donald Trump’s call to overturn its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling 44 years ago that made abortions legal.

Illinois’ Medicaid program covers abortions in cases of rape, incest and when a mother’s life or health is threatened. The expansion would enable poor women to obtain elective abortions. Also, the legislation would allow state employees to have the procedures covered under state health insurance.

The vote was a rare legislative victory for U.S. abortion-rights advocates at a time when foes have ratcheted up the heat with the election of Trump and a conservative Congress.

However, the victory will likely be short lived because Governor Bruce Rauner has promised to veto the legislation, saying Illinois should focus on less “divisive” issues and instead pass a full-year operating budget for the first time in nearly two years.

A spokeswoman for Rauner directed questions on Wednesday evening to previous statements where he said he did not support the measure. However, as a candidate in 2014, he supported expanding abortion access.

Republican lawmakers have criticized the bill as both burdensome to tax payers and immoral.

“We should be focused on ways to reduce costs—not advance costly controversial proposals that will cost the taxpayers even more,” Republican state senator Dan McConchie said in a statement on Wednesday.

A veto override would take 71 votes in the Democrat-led House, where the bill passed 62-55 in late April. It would take 36 votes in the Senate.

A veto by Rauner would be a sharp turn from his previous position, which political opponents are poised to exploit.

“We cannot allow Illinois to return to the days when women had so few options for reproductive care that they desperately resorted to back-alley quacks, poison, knitting needles, disappearing from public sight or suicide to deal with unwanted pregnancies,” state senator Daniel Biss, a Democrat, said in a statement after the bill passed on Wednesday.

(Additional reporting by Karen Pierog; Editing by David Gregorio)

Delaware legislature moves to guarantee abortion access in Trump era

An exam room at the Planned Parenthood South Austin Health Center is shown following the U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down a Texas law imposing strict regulations on abortion doctors and facilities in Austin, Texas, U.S. June 27, 2016. REUTERS/Ilana Panich-Linsman

By Barbara Goldberg

(Reuters) – The Delaware state Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that would keep abortion legal in the state if a future U.S. Supreme Court shaped by President Donald Trump overturns the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized it nationally.

The measure was approved by a vote of 11-7 but needs to be passed by the House and signed by Democratic Governor John Carney Jr. to take effect.

Democrats control both houses of the Delaware legislature but are facing a June 30 end to this year’s session.

Carney “supports the rights and protections afforded women under Roe v. Wade” but has not yet said whether he will sign the bill into law, said his spokeswoman Jessica Borcky.

Trump has promised to appoint justices to the nation’s top court, including recent appointee Neil Gorsuch, who would overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling and leave it up to the individual states to decide whether to legalize abortion. Trump received strong support from anti-abortion groups in the election campaign.

Delaware is one of 11 states with a pre-Roe abortion ban still on the books, according to the Guttmacher Institute which tracks reproductive policy.

If Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion would be almost immediately illegal in four states – Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota, according to Guttmacher and the Center for Reproductive Rights. In the other 46 states, abortion would remain legal but in at least 10 states – including Delaware – it could become illegal with a step as simple and swift as a state attorney general’s opinion, Guttmacher said.

“There wasn’t a sense of urgency until President Trump got elected,” said Kathleen MacRae, executive director of the ACLU of Delaware. The ACLU and Planned Parenthood of Delaware formed the “She Decides Delaware” campaign to lobby for legislation to keep abortion legal.

“We don’t want to leave the women of Delaware in a vulnerable position,” MacRae said. “It’s up to the woman and the family to decide when she would like to become a parent.”

Momentum for the bill grew in April when a coalition of state religious leaders including Jewish, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian and Unitarian clergy publicly declared “acceptance” of abortion in a show of support for Planned Parenthood. The state’s Catholic leader, Bishop Francis Malooly of the Diocese of Wilmington, immediately denounced the statement.

MINIMALIST DESIGN

The bill itself has a minimalist design. It aims to keep the provisions of Roe v. Wade rather than repeal the 1953 state ban.

“This bill simply seeks to codify the framework in place for a very long time – that a woman has a right to choose,” Senator Bryan Townsend, a Democrat who is the bill’s sponsor, told colleagues before the vote.

“It’s a decision that belongs with the woman, her doctor and her family,” said Senator Stephanie Hansen, a Democrat and bill co-sponsor.

Opponents denounced the move. “Any civilized society restricts an individual’s right to choose when it would affect an innocent person. I can think of no more innocent person than an unborn child,” said Senator Bryant Richardson, a Republican.

“You can codify abortion all you want but you are still codifying the murder of an unborn child,” said Delaware Right to Life spokeswoman Moira Sheridan.

Under the 1950s’ Delaware ban, terminating a pregnancy is a felony for the provider and a misdemeanor for the woman, except when it is deemed a “therapeutic abortion” in either case.

Dr. Larry Glazerman, medical director at Planned Parenthood Delaware, said he is confident the bill is enough to protect him and other doctors who provide abortion from prosecution.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Iowa Supreme Court blocks portion of 20-week abortion ban

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad testifies before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing on his nomination to be U.S. ambassador to China at Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., U.S. on May 2, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

By Timothy Mclaughlin

(Reuters) – The Iowa Supreme Court on Friday granted an emergency temporary injunction halting a portion of a 20-week abortion ban that was signed into law by Republican Governor Terry Branstad just hours earlier.

The law, passed by Iowa’s Republican-controlled House and Senate last month, bans abortions once a pregnancy reaches 20 weeks and stipulates a three-day waiting period before women can undergo any abortion.

The law does not make exceptions for instances of rape or incest but does allow for abortions if the mother’s life or health is at risk.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Planned Parenthood, a group that provides family planning services, including abortions, challenged the waiting-period part of the legislation in court as well as the requirement for an additional clinical visit women must make before an abortion.

The state Supreme Court on Friday issued the injunction after it was denied Thursday by a district judge.

“We are pleased that the court granted the temporary injunction, ruling on the side of Iowa women who need access to, and have a constitutional right, to safe, legal abortion,” Suzanna de Baca, chief executive of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland said in a statement.

The state will have an opportunity to respond to the court’s decision on Monday.

“This is all part of the process and we’re confident that the stay will be lifted very shortly,” said Ben Hammes, a spokesman for the Republican governor.

Women in the United States have the right under the Constitution to end a pregnancy, but abortion opponents have pushed for tougher regulations, particularly in conservative states.

There are 24 states that impose prohibitions on abortions after a certain number of weeks, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks reproductive policy.

Seventeen of these states ban abortion at about 20 weeks and after.

Iowa’s law, Hammes said after the signing, marked a “return to a culture that once again respects human life.”

In Tennessee, a bill similar to the Iowa measure was sent to the desk of that state’s Republican governor on Wednesday to possibly be signed into law.

(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)