Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa embraces her close friend, Cedar Rapids Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell, during a scheduled town hall meeting at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. (Jeff Stelfox/The Gazette)
Iowa’s tornado season has been record-breaking, but it’s not the only place experiencing the violent spins.
U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson’s office tends to get dizzy when the issue of women’s reproductive rights comes up.
Find a hiding place. Find a political hiding place.
The latest example came as congressional Democrats were trying to pass a bill that would guarantee access to contraception nationwide, which would protect providers who offer contraception and cover “any drug, device, or biological product intended for use in the prevention of pregnancy.”
States would not be given the power to block access, and the Department of Justice would be given the authority to enforce the law’s protections.
Most Republicans, including Hinson, oppose the bill.
Hinson has introduced her own bill to allow some birth control pills to be purchased over the counter by women over 18. The bill would require the Food and Drug Administration to fast-track its review of birth control pills that are already deemed safe, and direct the Government Accountability Office to study how much money is being spent on improving access to contraception.
The fact that it includes research means it’s a great bill. Senator Joni Ernst has a similar bill in the Senate.
The bill doesn’t include any guarantees of access to contraception; it focuses only on oral contraceptives, not other methods; there’s no provision that states can’t restrict access; and it excludes teenagers who may need the pill. It’s nearly identical to a bill she introduced in 2022, when her Democratic opponent, Liz Mathis, attacked her record on reproductive rights.
Her long record of voting in favor of abortion bans and restrictions on reproductive rights will be hard to hide.
Her bill isn’t a terrible idea, but it’s disappointing and a poor alternative to the Democratic bill, but Hinson argues Democrats are “fear mongering” about false threats to birth control.
“While Democrats play political games, I will continue to work on common sense policy solutions and advocate for the women of Iowa,” Hinson said in a statement.
“Democrats are using their power to spread exaggerated and false claims about problems with access to contraception,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who sits on the Senate Health, Labor, Education and Pensions Committee.
Are Democrats playing politics? Of course they are. Republicans are in a weak position because of their unpopular positions on anti-abortion and government control over women’s bodies. Democrats who want to win elections will likely bring this up often.
But sometimes, politics is about good policy. It’s natural to be nervous about what Democrats will do after the Supreme Court stripped away abortion rights for 50 years. Justices Sam “Upside-Down Flag” Alito, Clarence Thomas, and their conservative allies are not known for restraint.
A Washington Post investigation of contraception bills found that Republicans have blocked measures to protect access to contraception in many Republican-leaning states. In Missouri, Louisiana and Idaho, anti-abortion groups have characterized some contraceptives as “abortion drugs,” claimed emergency contraception was the same as an abortion pill and claimed oral contraceptives induce abortions — all of which are false.
“These are Republican men,” Missouri Rep. Tara Peters, a Republican who co-sponsored a bill to allow women to buy a year’s supply of birth control, told The Post. “It’s astonishing that these decisions are being made by people who don’t know anything about these things.”
Yeah, it’s really shocking. We all know how quickly misinformation can become law.
And who can blame Democrats for not listening to Republicans’ insistence that nothing is wrong, that nothing is a problem? They’ve heard it before.
“I think the chances of Roe v. Wade being overturned are very slim. I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Ernst said during a September 2020 debate with Democratic opponent Theresa Greenfield on Iowa PBS in what was expected to be a close race at the time.
“Well, I don’t think anyone will overturn it. Roe v. Wade“Certainly many conservatives want the verdict to be overturned, but the conventional wisdom is that he has more work to do,” the late Sen. Orrin Hatch said on the PBS NewsHour during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation debate.
“So I seriously doubt that it’s really a legitimate concern,” Hatch said.
It turns out that’s a very valid concern.
As mentioned earlier, it will be difficult for Hinson to whitewash her record on reproductive rights. When she ran for the Iowa House of Representatives, she testified that she needed Planned Parenthood’s services because she had not been able to get an obstetrician-gynecologist appointment for a year. In 2017, she voted to defund Planned Parenthood.
That led to what’s now known as the MOMS program, which will award $2 million to a shortlist of mostly faith-affiliated “crisis pregnancy centers.” These centers are not medically licensed and exist primarily to convince women to choose childbirth over abortion. Combined with a shortage of obstetric and gynecological care at smaller hospitals, fewer Iowa women have access to quality family planning resources.
As a state representative, Hinson voted for the first version of the so-called “heartbeat bill,” which essentially banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions, such as health emergencies, rape, and incest. As a U.S. representative, Hinson signed the Life at Conception Act, which defines life as created at conception and bans all abortions with no exceptions.
And when all else failed, she accused Democrats of supporting abortion up until the due date and said they were fear-mongering.
Hinson has a strong chance of winning reelection against Democrat Sarah Corkery, but if the Iowa Supreme Court upholds the state’s six-week abortion ban this week, the issue suddenly becomes real in Iowa. Some Republicans who expected an easy victory may find themselves facing headwinds as they find no political cover.
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