What Reynolds said about abortion penalties when she hit statewide stage

2010 comments to Times Herald contain some insights into governor’s positioning

(Editor’s Note: This reporting first appeared in The Carroll Times Herald, a newspaper in western Iowa co-owned by the author.)

Republicans, with a generational win in hand with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, are looking to ban abortion at the state level across the nation. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a consistently, is at the forefront of that effort.

“The Supreme Court’s greatest moments have come when it allows America to embody more perfectly the enduring truth on which it was founded: that all human beings, without exception, are created equal,” Reynolds said in a statement on the day the High Court overturned Roe. “By that measure, today’s historic decision is clearly one such moment. But the fight for life is not over. As governor, I won’t rest until every unborn Iowan is protected and respected.”

In 2010, during an interview with the Times Herald, Reynolds was asked to elaborate on her early anti-abortion positions.

If her stance on abortion prevails, and it is criminalized again, what should the penalty be for a physician who performs an abortion or a woman who has one?

“Well, I think it would be equivalent to murder,” Reynolds said. “I would want to research that before I would lay specifically out what the penalties would be.”

If someone is stabbed to death in front of Pizza Ranch now is the culprit guilty of the same crime as a doctor who performs an abortion?

“No,” she said.

So it’s a different kind of murder then?

“I would want to take a look at that and make sure that I completely walked through that before I would say anything right now,” Reynolds said. “I’m not going to give an answer to that right now without thoroughly looking into that and making sure that I’m looking at both sides.”

If she’s strongly pro-life, why hasn’t Reynolds thought about the punishment component as criminalized abortion is the end game, the logical conclusion, of the pro-life movement?

“I don’t know if it needs to be the death penalty,” she said. “Is that what you’re asking me?”

Should the doctors and women involved the abortion get a ticket, a fine, or should they be executed?

“I think that we would take a look and make sure that the punishment met the crime,” Reynolds said. “It would depend on the level of crime that was served. I would want to be sure to take a look at that before I gave an off-handed comment to that issue.”