DES MOINES, Iowa — A bill that would have criminalized the death of an “unborn person” has been shelved in Iowa after a Senate Republican joined Democrats in voicing concerns about the potential impact on in vitro fertilization after an Alabama court found frozen embryos can be considered children.
The Senate declined to consider the bill, which was approved by the House last week. It would have amended the language to pertain to “causing of death of, or serious injury to, an unborn person,” defined as “an individual organism of the species homo sapiens from fertilization to live birth.”
Iowa’s law currently outlines penalties for termination or serious injury to a “human pregnancy.”
Republican Sen. Brad Zaun, who leads the Senate judiciary committee, did not assign the bill to a subcommittee because he was concerned about the “unintended consequences” for IVF, he told reporters.
Before voting on the House floor, Democrats raised the Alabama case, warning that the proposed language would pose a risk to the procedure that helps some women become pregnant.
Iowa Republican Rep. Skyler Wheeler said the bill was much simpler than Democrats were suggesting, and that they were “trying to turn this into a conversation that it is not.”
After the Senate rejected the bill, the chair of the House judiciary committee, Rep. Steven Holt, said they did not believe IVF was at risk because of differences in Iowa and Alabama’s constitutions. Still, Holt said, he understood the concerns and said it’s “certainly a discussion we’ve got to have before we would move it on” in the future.
The majority ruling of Alabama’s Supreme Court treated an embryo the same as a child or gestating fetus under the state’s wrongful death law, explicitly stating “unborn children are ‘children.’” That led three major providers of IVF in Alabama to pause services because of concerns about liabilities.
The bill in Iowa was one of many being considered by state Legislatures around the country that would expand legal and constitutional protections for embryos and fetuses, a long-time goal of the anti-abortion movement.
Democratic Rep. Jennifer Konfrst criticized House Republicans for the initial denial that IVF was at stake, which Democrats had warned before it passed.
“They got caught running a bill that did more than they said. They mocked us when we said it did that. And then other Republicans pulled the bill because it did just what we said,” Konfrst told reporters Thursday. “That is politics at its worst.”
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