On May 19, 2021, the Iowa Senate followed the Iowa House from the evening prior in passing a proposed amendment – dubbed the Protect Life Amendment – to the Iowa State Constitution.
The proposed amendment reads: “Life. To defend the dignity of all human life and protect unborn children from efforts to expand abortion even to the point of birth, we the people of the State of Iowa declare that this Constitution does not recognize, grant, or secure a right to abortion or require the public funding of abortion.”
“Today marks the first step in restoring the proper voice of the people of Iowa,” commented Bob Vander Plaats, president and CEO of The FAMiLY Leader. “In 2018, five radical, unelected judges stripped that voice away, declaring that they and they alone get to set Iowa’s abortion laws. Without constitutional grounds or any input of the people, they invented a so-called ‘right’ to abortion and then paved the way for future courts to force late-term abortion and taxpayer-funded abortion on Iowa.
“But the vast majority of Iowans don’t want to fund elective abortions nor live in a state where a baby’s life can be snuffed out just moments before her first breath,” Vander Plaats continued. “The judges were wrong to silence Iowa voters and seize for themselves the power to rewrite the people’s constitution. Today, the Iowa Legislature was right to give Iowans our voice back.”
“The Protect Life Amendment represents everyday Iowans telling unelected judges, ‘You don’t get to just decide the abortion debate for us,'” added Maggie DeWitte, executive director of Iowans for LIFE. “‘Because there’s one argument in the debate you didn’t take into account, one truth you can’t argue away: That little girl in her mother’s womb, she’s a baby.'”
Iowa’s Coalition of Pro-Life Leaders, including TFL and Iowans for LIFE, held a joint press conference on May 19 to clarify why the amendment is so needed and to express gratitude to the Iowa Legislature for passing it. The Coalition specifically thanked the amendment’s floor managers in the respected houses of Congress, Rep. Steven Holt and Sen. Jake Chapman, who also spoke at the event.
Watch video of the press conference, including remarks from DeWitte, Vander Plaats, Holt, and Chapman, below:
0:00 Maggie DeWitte Executive Director of Iowans for LIFE 1:25 Bob Vander Plaats President & CEO, The FAMiLY Leader 3:38 Sen. Jake Chapman Senate President 5:08 Rep. Steven Holt 7:00 ~ End
The Protect Life Amendment does not require the governor’s signature to advance. To be added to the Iowa Constitution, however, it must pass the next General Assembly of the Iowa Legislature (in 2023 or 2024) and then be ratified by a vote of the people of Iowa.
Thank YOU for being a BIG part of the Protect Life Amendment getting this far! But we still have a long way to go before it is officially added to our state constitution, and you know Planned Parenthood will be spending MILLIONS of dollars to stop it! Would you consider giving to The FAMiLY Leader’s life efforts today, and help us counter Planned Parenthood’s attacks? This truly is an “all-hands-on-deck” moment in our state’s history!
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