As candidates knock doors, voters increasingly voice concerns on Iowa’s abortion ban

Iowa voters are increasingly bothered by Iowa’s near-total abortion ban and candidates hear it a lot when door knocking.

When Ankeny Rep. Molly Buck first ran for office in 2022, abortion didn’t come up much when she knocked on voters’ doors.

Two years—and a restrictive abortion ban in Iowa—later, the Democratic legislator said voters will often tell her it’s their top issue.

“It’s a top issue not just for women, but for women and men, for people with children, for people of reproductive age,” Buck said. “I talk to a lot of older voters, especially women who fought hard for women to have reproductive freedom, and they are just devastated that this is where we’re at now. It doesn’t seem fair to them.”

Iowa Republicans in July 2023 passed a near-total abortion ban, which prohibits abortion before most people know they’re pregnant. The bill was introduced, debated, and passed all in one day. It was quickly blocked by a district court, but the Iowa Supreme Court allowed the law to go into effect at the end of July this year.  

“That was an essential freedom that people had grown very accustomed to that’s now ripped away,” Buck said. “People want that back, and they’re concerned about politicians being in the exam room with them.”

Recent polling from the Des Moines Register shows that 59% of Iowans disapprove of the ban and 64% think abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

What voters say about the abortion ban

“There is a fundamentally different understanding for a lot of folks about what abortion actually is and how it is complicated, because pregnancy is complicated,” said Democratic Rep. Heather Matson, who also represents Ankeny.

Matson and Buck both said Democratic voters aren’t the only ones concerned about abortion. They frequently knock on doors of Republican and No-Party voters who bring it up, too.

“When multiple people in a door knocking shift are bringing it up to me as something that’s really top of mind for them, then you know it is a truly salient issue,” Matson said.

More people recognize abortion as health care and a fundamental right, both representatives said.

“There is the fundamental understanding around the medical side of things, but also personal freedom, control over your own body, that feeling of ‘I just do not think it is fair or okay for the government to make decisions about my body when they don’t know me or my experiences,’” Matson said.

One of her most striking door-knocking conversations happened with a man who talked about his concerns of who’s making choices for women.

“He, unprompted, brought up the topic of abortion and how it was so hard for him personally, but that he just truly felt like he couldn’t make that decision for somebody else,” she said.

Other voters focus on how abortion is oftentimes standard medical treatment for issues that happen during pregnancy—whether it’s treatment for a miscarriage or for medical emergencies.

In conversations with voters, Buck compares access to reproductive care to her experience with cancer treatment.

“I try to really focus on access to health care, and that everybody should have access to the health care that they need,” she said. “I had access to all of the health care that I needed. Nobody ever came and said, ‘we’re outlawing radiation in this state,’ or ‘you can’t have this particular type of chemotherapy.’ Women deserve the same rights. You should have access to the health care that you need.”

What strikes both is how prominent the issue now is in voters’ minds, and how ready people are to bring it up on their own. Buck said almost half of the time she knocks on a door, someone wants to talk about reproductive rights.

Most people have trouble with how extreme the near-total ban is, she said.

“It’s really far to the right. It doesn’t seem to have a lot of common sense,” Buck said. “It just feels very severe, and I think that’s what really brings people to the conversation. They feel like this doesn’t fit the Iowa that they know.”