Reps. Sandy Salmon (R-Janesville) and Brooke Boden (R-Indianola) introduced a bill Wednesday that would require providers to report complications from abortions, make changes to the current abortion reporting requirements, and create a database that documents abortions in Iowa.
House File 2210 would require health care providers or medical facilities to file a report to the Iowa Department of Public Health if a woman “reports any complication, requires medical treatment or suffers death that the health care provider or medical facility has reason to believe is a primary, secondary, or tertiary result of an abortion.”
The report must include the woman’s age, race, and ethnicity, where the woman is from, the number of her prior pregnancies, births, miscarriages, and abortions, the date this abortion was performed, and the method, identification of who or where the abortion was performed, what the complication was, and the amount billed and what kind of insurance, if any, was used.
The bill defines complications as: “any adverse physical or psychological condition arising from an abortion.”
A similar bill was introduced in the Senate last year but never went anywhere.
The dashboard is meant to show the public downloadable data about abortion in Iowa, updated, at most, quarterly. If passed, the department of public health would have to have the dashboard ready by Jan. 20, 2023, and initial data available by Feb. 2, 2023.
The bill does have provisions to keep the data confidential.
It also amends current code about reporting to include “the gender of the unborn child, if known” and whether the woman got the state-mandated informed consent counseling, counseling about the risks and complications, information about alternatives and an ultrasound.
Providers will also have to report why the woman sought an abortion and how the abortion was paid for.
Nikoel Hytrek
2/2/22