Iowa's Bohannan could be strongest, most informed abortion-rights voice in history of Congress

Source:c Candidate’s Facebook page.

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IOWA CITY, Iowa —

An Iowa woman is positioned to be the most informed and forceful voice on abortion rights and reproductive freedom in the history of the U.S. Congress.

Christina Bohannan says women's reproductive rights are more fragile in Iowa now than during the years before the Civil War, as the Hawkeye State was forming. Iowa shed its territory status and became a state in 1846, in the heart of the nation's antebellum years.

Bohannan has the receipts. A University of Iowa law professor, Bohannan has pored over hundreds of cases on abortion, dating to mid-19th century. Few legislators will have read as much case law on abortion, while bringing the perspective of poverty and class challenges as Bohannan, who grew up in a Florida trailer park in a family of limited means.

"As a law professor, I read all 200 cases related to abortion in Iowa, dating back to the 1800s," Bohannan said. "I'll tell you something very interesting and that is that the abortion law now, the six-week ban, is stricter than the law as it was in the mid-1800s. Think about that for a second."

Source: Candidate’s Facebook page.

Bohannan, a Democrat running in Iowa's 1st Congressional District, an eastern reach of the state, made the remarks in mid-October on the campus of the University of Iowa, where early voter turnout has been high.

"We need to give women the right of agency to decide for themselves, their lives and their future," Bohannan said in Iowa City.

Bohannan, 53, supports restoring the standard of Roe v. Wade on abortion.

"Roe v. Wade was a balance," she said. "It was a compromise of sorts. It was done by the Supreme Court, but make no mistake, it was a balanced approach. And that's why it was accepted law for over a half century before the Supreme Court took it upon itself to take away a fundamental freedom for the first time in our country's history."

Historically, as women faced barriers to abortion and as laws made the procedure more restrictive, physicians were afraid of losing the license or facing other sanctions, so abortions were often performed by unqualified opportunists, Bohannan said.

"A lot of women died, otherwise young, healthy women with their whole lives in front of them," Bohannan said.

She added, "I won't go into some of the gruesome details. It was very hard to get through those 200 cases, let me tell you."

Source: Candidate’s Facebook page.

Today, abortion is a safe medical procedure if performed in regulated and respected facilities, she said.

At the time Iowa became a state there was no law against abortion. Restrictions went into effect only at "quickening," when an expectant mother begins to feel movement from a baby, which happens "significantly later" in a pregnancy than six weeks, Bohannan said.

"It's a fact that women have less freedom around this issue here in Iowa today than they did in Iowa around the time Iowa became a state," she said. "With medical advances and things, obviously I think health care today generally is better. But that freedom to decide these things for yourself is less today than it was back when Iowa became a state. I think that is a huge step backward."

(Douglas Burns, founder of The Iowa Mercury and a fourth-generation Iowa journalist from Carroll, is a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Read dozens of the most talented writers in Iowa in just one place. The Iowa Writers' Collaborative spans the full state. It’s one of the biggest things going in Iowa journalism and writing now — and you don’t want to miss. This collaborative is — as the outstanding Quad Cities journalist Ed Tibbetts says — YOUR SUNDAY IOWA newspaper. )

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When:  5-8 p.m. Dec. 13, 2024.

Where:  Harkin Institute, 2800 University Ave., Des Moines. 

What:  Appetizers, a short program, and great conversation.