Less than 4 months after ending up being Iowa Attorney General, Brenna Bird bought her workplace to stop spending for emergency situation birth control for rape victims. The chief law officer’s workplace had actually formerly covered the cost of Plan B tablets, and sometimes abortions, for rape victims because 1990 as part of Sexual Abuse Examination Program. The program was produced by the Iowa Legislature in 1979, and moved into the chief law officer’s workplace 11 years later on.
In April, when Bird’s order was first reported by Iowa Public Radio, a representative for her workplace identified it as simply a hold-up in payment throughout an audit of all victim services offered by the chief law officer’s workplace.
“As a part of her top-down, bottom-up audit of victim assistance, Attorney General Bird is carefully evaluating whether this is an appropriate use of public funds,” the representative informed IPR’s Natalie Krebs. “Until that review is complete, payment of these pending claims will be delayed.”
The audit is still not finish, however unsurprisingly, Bird appears to have actually already chosen to not restart payments.
The chief law officer was inquired about her rejection to pay for the cost of emergency situation birth control for rape victims throughout an appearance on Iowa Press this weekend. Responding to a concern from mediator O. Kay Henderson, Bird acknowledged that “we did pause payments to entities like Planned Parenthood and others that were being reimbursed for abortions and for Plan B.”
Bird appeared to dismiss the concept that this might trigger difficulty for victims or be an issue for doctor who help them, stating “those services still remain available under Iowa law to victims. It’s just whether public funds will pay for them.”
Asked by Henderson if she plans to make the present rejection to pay a long-term policy after the official conclusion of the audit, Bird responded, “I do, yes, once it’s done.”
Bird has actually made opposition to reproductive rights a top priority because ending up being chief law officer in January. On Feb. 1, Bird signed up with 19 other Republican state attorney generals of the United States in an effort to frighten Walgreens and CVS by threatening the drug store chains with undefined legal action if they followed brand-new FDA guidelines and made a prescription drug frequently utilized in medical abortion easily available. The next week, Bird and 21 other Republican state attorney general of the United States sent an amicus short in assistance of a federal claim by anti-abortion groups looking for an across the country injunction on circulation of the exact same prescription medication.
Bird operated on a strictly conservative platform in 2022 when she beat Democrat Tom Miller, the longest-serving state chief law officer in the nation. It was her 2nd time running for the workplace. In 2010, she was the Republican candidate for chief law officer, however lost to Miller.
Bird matured on her family’s farm near Dexter, Iowa. She was homeschooled prior to participating in Drake University, and later on the University of Chicago Law School. Her very first job in politics was with Steve King. She worked for the then-congressman for 7 years, beginning in 2003 as his deputy chief of staff prior to being promoted to chief of staff.
During her Iowa Press look, Bird said thinks the Iowa Supreme Court will maintain the extreme abortion restriction passed this month throughout a one-day unique session. Although it is basically similar to a 2018 restriction overruled as unconstitutional, Bird said she thinks what she misleadingly called the “heartbeat law” (the law would prohibit abortions prior to a heart being formed), since of “big changes since 2019 at the national level, notably the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case,” which reversed Roe v. Wade.
“So, we will be arguing to uphold the heartbeat law in Iowa’s Supreme Court in light of that new federal case law,” Bird said.
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The continuous legal difficulty to the present restriction counts on the ideal ensured by the Iowa Constitution, not federal law. So did the choice that enforced a long-term injunction on the previous variation of the abortion restriction.
Three days after Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the brand-new abortion restriction into law, a state district court judge provided a momentary injunction stopping it from being implemented. Abortion as much as 20 weeks stays legal in Iowa. The Iowa Supreme Court has actually consented to hear the guv’s appeal of the short-term injunction, however no date for a hearing has actually been set.
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