Attorney Martin Cannon serves as senior litigation counsel at the Thomas More Society. He was the lawyer who defended the Heartbeat bill.
He said flawed thinking that the Constitution is old, outdated and that a court sometimes has to step in and tweak things to bring it up to date has created the need for this amendment.
There are two ways to amend the Iowa Constitution, he said, both must be done by the People.
“There’s no provision for anyone else or any other branch to do it,” Cannon said.
Iowa has amended its constitution in 48 different ways, he said, on 27 different occasions, with the most recent being in 2010.
“Iowa’s Constitution is not an old document,” he said. “It’s a current document.”
He disagreed with the anti-life advocates in the room who said this amendment would eliminate abortions in Iowa.
“It does not outlaw abortion,” he said. “Unlike the Supreme Court that largely takes the matter out of the hands of the people, this amendment does not say abortion shall be allowed or shall not be allowed in Iowa — it simply says that that question is not going to be answered and crammed down one side’s throat or the other. It leaves the matter in the hands of the people.”
