WATCH PRESS CONFERENCE HERE.
Today, Iowa Democratic Party Vice Chair Andrea Phillips and Planned Parenthood Voters of Iowa PAC Manager Jamie Burch were in Cedar Rapids discussing Republicans’ failures to protect the health of Iowan women.
From defunding critical health care providers like Planned Parenthood, to stripping hardworking Iowa women of care though the privatized Medicaid disaster, to passing the most extreme abortion ban in the country, Republicans across the state consistently put ideology and partisanship ahead of the rights and health of Iowa women.
Republicans are waging a war on women to prevent them from obtaining safe, legal health care. Iowans deserve representatives who are fighting for them, and Governor Reynolds and Republicans in the Statehouse are not those people.
“Governor Reynolds’ Medicaid Privatization is a disaster for Iowa women, especially those in rural Iowa. Medicaid covers more than half of rural births, but now, many rural hospitals have stopped accepting Medicaid patients altogether or been forced to close because the MCOs aren’t reimbursing them,” said Iowa Democratic Party Vice Chair Andrea Phillips.
“Access to birth control has literally been a lifesaver for me…but getting needed care is not so easy for some women. The time and money it takes to reach a Planned Parenthood clinic is an obstacle. The Iowa Legislature’s vote to block state funding for Planned Parenthood has resulted in four clinics closing,” said Planned Parenthood patient Erin Owen.
“If Governor Reynolds and Legislative Republicans really wanted to protect Iowa families, they’d be expanding access to reproductive care, not using scare tactics based on junk science to villainize a safe, legal procedure that protects women’s rights,” said Planned Parenthood Voters of Iowa PAC Manager Jamie Burch.
“And they most certainly would not be passing an abortion ban that prevents us from training OBGYNs in this state to care for women and growing families. But that’s what that bill did, and this is the kind of damage that Republicans will continue to inflict if they are given another four years in control of our government.”
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