Iowa’s abortion ban is so severe a wrong turn that even voters who otherwise applaud the work of Republican legislators and Gov. Kim Reynolds should act this fall to begin to roll it back.
If Iowans voted only their views on abortion rights, it could be enough to overturn the law, according to this month’s Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll . Of 811 adults interviewed from Sept. 8 to 11, 59% say they oppose the ban, which took effect this summer, and 64% say they believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. If those numbers translated into majorities of the Iowa Senate and Iowa House and the election of a like-minded governor in 2026, the state could stop oppressing girls and women by 2027. (Reynolds has celebrated the law, so she wouldn’t sign a repeal bill.)
All of that is a rallying cry for Iowans who support, along with abortion rights, other policies promoted by the Democratic Party. But it can and should animate a substantial slice of Republicans, too. Sixty-seven percent of Republicans in the Iowa Poll say that they favor the state’s ban on abortion once embryonic cardiac activity can be detected, just a few weeks after conception and often before a woman knows she is pregnant. But more than a fourth, 27%, oppose the law. Can the case be made for substantial numbers of them to vote for Democrats based on this issue alone?