Joan Thompson of the Iowa Catholic Conference said the amendment is necessary due to the court’s ruling and discovery of a so-called fundamental right to an abortion.
There’s no evidence, Thompson said, to suggest anyone who wrote Iowa’s Constitution would support such a notion considering the state issued its first abortion prohibition eight years before it became a state.
Now, she said, the Iowa Supreme Court has elevated the issue beyond the reach of Iowa’s lawmakers.
“With the June 2018 decision, the court distinguished Iowa as a state that interprets and protects the right to an abortion more expansively than Roe v. Wade,” she said. “If and when Roe is struck down, or federal law is modified, abortion will remain a fundamental right in Iowa. We believe a just and compassionate society and our state in particular cannot secure the rights of one class by denying the most basic rights of another.”
The solution, she said, is SJR 9.
