Iowa’s reproductive rights landscape: Get ready for 2025

Your 2025 guide to potential reproductive rights legislation in Iowa

When Iowa’s 2024 legislative session ended, several bills restricting reproductive rights were left on the table. But a new session begins on Jan. 13, 2025—and there’s precedent for failed bills to be revived.

For example, in 2023, Iowa’s elected Republicans passed a law that bans abortion so early in pregnancy most people don’t know they’re pregnant yet. That ban went into effect in July 2024.

Republicans in 2022 created the “More Options for Maternal Support” (MOMS) program, a taxpayer-funded program that supports fake medical clinics known as anti-abortion or crisis pregnancy centers, which are designed to talk people out of getting abortions. 

The program failed to function for two years because the state couldn’t find anyone to administer the program until they loosened the requirements in 2023.

In 2020, Iowa Republicans passed a law requiring patients who want abortions to make two appointments with 24 hours in between—one for the consultation and one for the actual procedure. It didn’t go into effect until the Iowa Supreme Court allowed it in 2022.

That made getting an abortion much harder for people with inflexible jobs, with children at home, or with transportation issues—to say nothing of the people whose time is controlled by an abusive partner. The 24-hour law came after a 72-hour waiting period was passed in 2017 and struck down in 2018.

In 2025, Iowa Republicans will have an expanded majority in the state legislature. Here are some of the bills that could be revisited next year.

“Fetal personhood”

Laws that define life beginning at fertilization, before implantation, introduce the idea of “fetal personhood.” The logic behind those laws is to give fetuses the same rights as a newborn baby or a pregnant person.

The idea of fetal personhood acts as an abortion ban without explicitly banning abortion, and it could threaten some kinds of birth control. 

• Fetal death lawsuits (HF 2230): would let someone take legal action against someone responsible for the “wrongful death” of an embryo or fetus at any point in pregnancy. This ignores existing medical malpractice laws in order to push “fetal personhood” into state law by defining embryos and fetuses as people. 
• Making fetuses “unborn persons” (HSB 621): makes causing death or serious injury to an unborn “person” without the consent of the pregnant person a Class A felony. It also gives embryos and fetuses “personhood” from the moment of fertilization.

Both made it through the committee process in the state House in 2024. The bills stalled because of concerns about how they would impact IVF. They were being discussed at the same time the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos should be considered children. Because the bills didn’t have specific protections for IVF, Iowa Republicans tabled the issue. 

Ban on abortion medication

• Medication abortion felony (HF 2122): This bill limits access to abortion medication by making it illegal to receive by mail, and by imposing a 19-step process for in-person access. The bill also creates an electronic record of who received the medication, and the medical personnel involved in dispensing it. Under this bill, the only way to get abortion pills would be through a health care provider. The only way for a pharmacy, medical facility, or practitioner to get pills for patients would be by enrolling in the state’s certification program. The bill is full of lies and scare tactics about medication abortion by suggesting the medication is dangerous. It isn’t.  It includes strict penalties for offenders, including an automatic class “D” felony.

• Medication abortion ban (HF 146): This would ban abortion medication in Iowa. Iowa House Republicans would make it a felony to “manufacture, distribute, prescribe, dispense, sell or transfer” abortion pills in Iowa.

Both of these bills were introduced in 2024, with support from Republican legislators. Republicans wouldn’t have to simply ban abortion medication to make it harder to access, either. Louisiana changed the rules around abortion medications so they’re classified as “controlled substances,” the same way some opioids are, and added restrictions for how doctors can prescribe it.

Anti-abortion propaganda in schools

• Anti-abortion curriculum (HF 2031/HF 2617): This bill would require anti-abortion curriculum to be taught in schools, and require showing students in grades 7-12 (ages 12-18) a video with false and misleading information about fetal development. It also includes the biased notion that life begins at conception.

The video referenced in the bills was created by an anti-abortion group. This legislation is part of a national Republican agenda, having already appeared in multiple states, including North Dakota and Tennessee. An earlier version of the bill (HF2031) required those videos as early as first grade.

In 2024, these bills passed both the subcommittee and committee stages. They were put on the “unfinished business” calendar in March.