Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal (D-Council Bluffs) invites late-term abortionists to Iowa. That’s the truth behind the Senator Gronstal-backed “certificate of need” bill, which lays out a regulatory structure for late-term abortion clinics to do business in Iowa. It just passed the Iowa senate on a party-line vote.
These regulations do nothing to discourage or prevent infanticide–the killing of a child minutes before birth–in Iowa. They are designed to do one thing: make it harder for abortionist Dr. Leroy Carhart to move a clinic into Gronstal’s own district. The rest of Iowa? It’s now sending an engraved invitation: Iowa is open for late-term abortion business.
As the Des Moines Register noted, “A bitterly divided Iowa Senate on Monday approved a bill aimed at blocking a Nebraska physician from opening an abortion clinic in Council Bluffs, although the legislation would not prevent so-called late-term abortion clinics in four other Iowa cities.”
Senator Nancy Boettger (R-Harlan) called it like it is: “I am sick that this bill actually sets up a pathway for late-term abortionists to set up work here in Iowa. I call this the ‘late-term abortionists’ invitation bill.’”
And Governor Terry Branstad, to his credit, recognized Gronstal’s manuevering for what it is: a dive for political cover, not a serious proposal to deal with a core moral issue for Iowans: “I don’t think the Senate version is effective,” Branstad told the Sioux City Journal. “I think it’s strictly designed just to provide cover. We need something that’s going to be effective all over the state of Iowa, not something that’s just a political thing.”
Meanwhile Senator Gronstal openly admitted he supports abortions even after the seventh month of pregnancy, which is currently legal in Iowa if the doctor performing and profiting from the abortion is willing to say it’s necessary to protect the health of the mother.
“I reel at the thought of an abortion, but I also reel at the thought of telling a woman she has to take to term a baby that cannot survive. That has to be a gut-wrenching decision,” Gronstal said.
The bill passed only because Democrats, prodded by the man they elected leader, voted as a bloc against life, only after first voting as a bloc in rejecting an amendment that would have provided real protections.
Like lambs to the slaughter, I would say–only the slaughter is not of the sheep doing the voting.
Meanwhile Senator Gronstal continues to stall, to hem, to haw and delay bringing up House File 657, which would block abortions after 20 weeks unless the life of the mother is in immediate danger.
Jennifer Bowen, the intrepid leader of Iowa Right to Life, told One News Now: Iowa Senate President Michael Gronstal (D) is not permitting House File 657, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks, to go to the floor for debate.
Remember this in the next election cycle: It was Democrats, and above all the man they elected to lead them Sen. Mike Gronstal (D-Council Bluffs), who determinedly stood in the way of preventing late-term abortions.
Warning: Playing politics with unborn life is not good politics, Senator Gronstal.
