By Ila Ananya

Just a few days ago, after long discussions, the Iowa House Republicans decided to adopt a 20-week abortion ban amendment.

It essentially cut off access to abortion after 20 weeks, and according to the amendment, life begins at fertilisation. An earlier version of the bill even went to the extent of stating that a doctor who performs an abortion after 20 weeks would be charged with foeticide, which is a felony.

This is bad enough. But what’s depressing is that many people also seem to be thankful that the bill wasn’t worse than this. Reportedly it could have been, because the same Republicans had, just before this, backed a legislation that would’ve banned abortions entirely, once a foetal heartbeat was detected. We just can’t believe what is happening—basically it means that a woman’s well-being and life is much less valuable than that of a foetus.

Women’s reproductive rights have always been under attack, wherever we are. But in Iowa, it also didn’t stop there, because now there’s a footage of the entire discussion doing the rounds.

This time it’s horrendous and unbelievable, because Shannon Lundgren, the Republican state representative at Iowa, has pushed these discussions so much—she says that a woman who miscarries after 20 weeks of pregnancy should actually carry their dead foetus to term. Lundgren is also the person who sponsored the heartbeat bill.

When Rep. John Forbes, a Democrat, challenged Lundgren in the hearing, she even said, “This bill wasn’t written for the intent to protect or govern on the side of the woman. It was written to save babies lives.” We don’t understand this at all. Let us for a moment keep aside the fact that this is a terrible abortion bill—doesn’t Lundgren also know that miscarriages can happen with no relation to a woman wanting an abortion?

But what does it even mean that Lundgren thinks women should carry a miscarried foetus to term? It’s obvious that something like that will have terrible health consequences on the woman. And why does this sound like some kind of punishment?

An earlier headline erroneously referred to an Ohio Legislator instead of Iowa Legislator. This has been corrected.