April 7, 2000

Brent Siegrist
Speaker of the House
State Capitol Building
L O C A L

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I hereby transmit House File 2229, an act relating to informed consent provisions relating to an abortion and providing criminal penalties, and providing an effective date.

House File 2229 provides that an abortion shall be prohibited without the "voluntary and informed consent" of the woman seeking the procedure. To meet this consent requirement, a physician or the physician's agent is required to provide prescribed information, predominantly non-medical, to the woman at least 24 hours prior to performing the procedure. The bill, in a rare move, would subject medical professionals to criminal penalties for failing to comply.

As a state senator, I felt that government had a proper, but limited, role to act in certain areas affecting abortions. I supported parental notification as well as the ban on late-term abortions. However, I view House File 2229 differently.

Iowa law currently requires a medical professional to obtain, from the patient, a written consent to any medical or surgical procedure. (Iowa Code 147.137) This written consent includes information on the risks associated with the procedure to be performed. Therefore, women are already being provided information they need to make an informed decision about the abortion procedure. This bill also assumes that women do not invest enough time before the procedure weighing the emotional, medical, and spiritual factors involved in making this extremely difficult decision. I do not believe that assumption is true.

Current parental notification laws also provide an opportunity for every young woman to have help and assistance in making this decision. Medical facilities providing abortions and family planning services currently make available to a woman contemplating an abortion a great deal of information. A number of other organizations, including many churches, make information on alternatives available. From this, I conclude that any information a woman wants or needs is available to her.

Given the current laws in Iowa and the level of information currently available to women, I must conclude that this bill is not about providing informed consent. Rather it is about government prescribing what a woman should think about, when a woman should think, and for how long a woman should think. This goes beyond the appropriate role of government in the context of this legal procedure.

The decision to have or not have an abortion is and should be the patient's decision. It should be made pursuant to her own values, in consultation with her physician and her God. Government's role is and should be limited.

For the above reasons, I hereby respectfully disapprove House File 2229.

Sincerely,

Thomas J. Vilsack
Governor

TJV:jmc

cc: Secretary of the Senate
   Chief Clerk of the House

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