Iowa’s Abortion Ban Strikes Another Blow to Access: ‘All Hands on Deck’

The hits just keep on coming: At 8 a.m. this morning, Iowa's six-week abortion ban took effect, making Iowa the 18th state to ban abortion at or before embryonic cardiac activity. The loss in access comes weeks after two national funding sources for abortion seekers slashed their budgets due to declining donations. Local abortion funds are now working together to help people get care as their clinic options dwindle and more people have to book train tickets and hotel rooms. “We're anticipating the need to just go through the roof,” said Lyz Lenz, who serves on the board of directors of the Iowa Abortion Access Fund, one of the oldest abortion funds in the country, dating back to 1978. IAAF has been preparing for this reality and is partnering with the Chicago Abortion Fund (CAF) to both help Iowans and to protect themselves from the mounting legal threats that have emerged in other states, Lenz told Jezebel. People who call the IAAF helpline will be assisted by staff and volunteers from CAF, and IAAF will send CAF money to support those callers and run the helpline. (Other patients will travel north to Minnesota.) “Given the political climate in this state, we wanted a partnership with another fund so that we weren't risking our ability to help other Iowans,” Lenz said, adding. “We're still raising money to help Iowans get abortion care. The only difference is the number that they call is going to take them to the Chicago Fund, which helps them from there.” Previously, IAAF provided between 50 and 90 patient grants per month for both in-state and out-of-state care. (Iowa has a requirement for two visits, 24 hours apart, and had a prior 22-week ban.) Iowa clinics also cared for patients coming from Missouri, where abortion has been banned since the day of the Dobbs decision. Most of those people will now have to find somewhere else to go. Lenz expects both the number of grants and the amount to increase as the majority of Iowans will now have to travel out of state for care—which means that the IAAF needs to raise even more money to help people make it to their appointments. Qudsiyyah Shariyf, deputy director of the Chicago Abortion Fund, said it was already seeing an increase in Iowa callers since the state Supreme Court ruled in late June that the ban would be upheld. (Abortion access is protected in Illinois through fetal viability, but that could change if Donald Trump wins the presidency, or if the U.S. Supreme Court declares fetal personhood under the 14th Amendment.) In the first three weeks of July, CAF received more than 60 support requests from Iowans—a 165% increase.  The strain on funds like IAAF and CAF comes on top of the number of abortion-seekers who are now traveling from the South after Florida's 6-week ban took effect on May 1. (In 2023, Florida clinics provided 84,000 abortions or about one in 12 nationwide; experts expect the number to fall by more than half.) Abortion funds are also navigating funding cuts from national organizations: As of July 1, both the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood cut patient assistance from 50% of each caller's need down to just 30%. (That is, if someone requests $1,000, they can now only qualify for $300 compared to $500 before.)  CAF has 12 people working full-time on their helpline, in addition to dedicated volunteers, but is in the process of hiring more staffers since Illinois has become “a receiving state,” Shariyf said. In 2023, more than 37,000 people traveled to Illinois to get abortions, the biggest number of out-of-state patients in…