Abortion rates in Iowa rose 25 percent after the state withdrew from federal funding for family planning, new data shows.
In 2017, Iowa withdrew from a federal program that funded birth control and other reproductive health programs. The state replaced the program with its own, but specifically barred Planned Parenthood from participating. The results have been devastating for women’s health. The new state program served a quarter as many participants as the former program, which included Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood struggled to serve its most vulnerable clients without funding, since many of them would have to pay for care out-of-pocket. Clinics routinely reported that half of their patients didn’t show up each day, and four Planned Parenthood clinics closed.
Data comparing 2019 to prior years shows that women didn’t just lose cancer screenings and treatment for infections. They also lost access to services that could prevent abortion. Iowa, like the rest of the state, has enjoyed plummeting abortion rates for several years—a shift many analysts attributed to increased birth control access under the Affordable Care Act.
Between 2008 and 2018, Iowa’s abortion rate dropped by 56 percent. When access to birth control declines, though, abortion skyrockets. Between 2018 and 2019, the rate began climbing again, increasing by 25 percent in the first full year following the defunding of Planned Parenthood.
Iowa isn’t the only place where the war on abortion clinics has led to more abortions. A pair of studies—one published in 2020 and one in 2019—linked state-level abortion restrictions to an increase in late-term abortions. And worldwide, the abortion rate has risen thanks to a reduction in U.S. funding for women’s health and a reinstatement of the “gag rule,” which prohibits health clinics from even mentioning abortion.
Republican lawmakers consistently oppose every measure that could reduce the abortion rate. They’ve even taken funding from children and family support services to fund anti-abortion “clinics” that provide no medical care. The latest numbers from Iowa demonstrate what should already be clear: their concern is not with protecting life, or even with lowering the abortion rate. Anti-choice laws have always been about punishing women. Judged by that measure, they’re wildly successful.