In our 2008 Candidate Survey, we presented the candidates with some background info on each question.  Here is the full survey with the issue information and questions.

Choose Life License Plates

Choose Life license plates have been adopted in many states, which is a source of income for pregnancy centers that help women in crisis pregnancies. These plates have stood up against anti-life lawsuits and have proven to be free speech with the additional benefit to help reduce abortion by helping the very women who choose life.

 

1. Question: Would you vote for a Choose Life license plate that would provide funding to crisis pregnancy centers, while prohibiting funding to groups that provide abortion? YES_____NO_____

 

Currently Iowa’s mandatory reporting law (232.69) requires the reporting of suspected child abuse for children that are only 11 and under and not for children 12-15. With a growing problem of children who are being sexually molested at very young ages, it is important to change the mandatory reporting law to include reporting for children 12 to 15 years of age.  

 

The problem of sexual abuse of young children is real. National and Iowa statistics reveal that teens are being sexually abused by older men. According to the most reliable studies, including Iowa, underage girls, some as young as 10 years old, are being sexually exploited by adult men. In fact, the numbers are staggering. Among girls 15 and younger who become pregnant, between 60% and 80 % of them are impregnated by adult men. Further, as the age of the child goes down, the age of the adult male goes up.

 

The problem is of epidemic proportions with older men sexually preying upon children.   [1]In a study of over 46,000 pregnancies by school-age girls in California, researchers found that “71%, or over 33,000, were fathered by adult post-high–school men who averaged to be 5 years older than the mothers.   [2] Involuntary sexual activity has been reported in 74% of sexually active girls who had intercourse younger than 14 years, and 60% of those younger than 15 years.  

Since Iowa’s mandatory reporting law is inconsistent with its rape law, which states that sex with any child of the age of 12 and 13 is rape, the pregnancy of a 12 to 15 year old is able to be covered up, allowing the abuse to continue.  

 

2. Question: Would you vote for a bill to increase the age for mandatory reporting from the current 11 years and under to also include 12 through 15 year old children? YES_____NO_____

Iowa’s current Parental Notification law (135 L) is insufficient to protect children and to sufficiently notify parents prior to a child receiving an abortion.   Iowa’s law has no mechanism to ensure that the “parent” is the person signing the notification or that the adult present at the abortion is actually the parent. With evidence of sexual predators preying on young teens, any man or woman may pose as the parent or forge the signature of the parent.   To compound the problem, the judicial waiver which was built into the law to protect children from suggested “abuse” by parents, is being abused by the abortion providers who coach and encourage girls to seek it even though there is no indication of abuse by the parent.    

 

We believe that it is reasonable for parents to be involved in their children’s surgeries and it is inappropriate for the state to circumvent that responsibility. Notably, abortion is a medical procedure that may cause death, or may injure the child for life.  

 

•     A notarized signature showing proof that a parent signed the notification prior to a minor’s abortion or a copy of the parent’s identification if the parent accompanies the minor to the abortion. Further, these document(s) should be preserved in the child’s medical records for seven years.

•     The court records of the waiver should be attached to the child’s medical file for proof of waiver.

 

Women’s Right to Know requires that the abortion provider offer the patient information about the development of the unborn child, the medical risks of abortion, and alternatives to abortion, at least 24 hours before an abortion is performed.  

 

The bill has the provision that the woman may refuse the material. To make sure that she is offered this information in a reasonable amount of time before her abortion, the clinic is given a 24-hour deadline.    

 

 In reality, "Women's Right to Know" maintains the right to an abortion, the right to refuse printed information, and the right to review the information. 

 

The benefits of “Women's Right to Know” are overwhelming. In other states (e.g. Mississippi and Pennsylvania) that have passed it, the abortion rate decreased. (This also verifies the study, “Women Exploited by Abortion” Dr. David Reardon, 1985), which concluded that 88% of women who reported having post-abortion problems, believed they did not have the information necessary to make the decision.)

 

4. Question: The bill has passed both Iowa Houses 3 years in a row, only to be vetoed by Governor Vilsack. Would you vote for the Women’s Right to Know bill? YES_____NO_____

Currently Iowa is disbursing over 5 million in tax dollars to Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion chain in the United States. While the public is interested in providing funds for women’s health, they do not want their tax dollars to fund an abortion chain.   Not only do are our tax dollars go to Planned Parenthood through Title X and other titles, Planned Parenthood takes advantage of the poor and the government by requesting donations from the same women who qualified for free services under the Title X Family Planning. In other words, Planned Parenthood is making a profit off the same poverty level women by giving women a sense of guilt that their services were “free” and requesting a donation, which, in one year raised $600,000 from impoverished women. 

 

We believe that appropriate health care services should be provided by health clinics that are not politically driven, regulated, and do not do abortions. This would be beneficial for both women and the government.   

5. Question:   Would you vote for a bill that would prohibit the use of tax dollars that fund organizations that perform or refer for abortions? This would not prohibit state funding for women’s health clinics that do not perform abortions; however, it would prohibit state funding to Planned Parenthood, unless they ceased to do or refer for abortions. YES_____NO_____

In the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court created a “right to abortion” that invalidated the abortion laws of all 50 states.

 

Adult stem cell research is supported by pro-life groups and has proven to be successful science, while embryonic stem cell research has been unsuccessful and kills an embryo for scientific research. Moreover, there are now 73 diseases benefiting by using ADULT stem cells, while there are ZERO from embryonic stem cell research. 

 

We strongly support scientific research using adult stem cell and we believe the government should promote this life saving and ethical research by using tax dollars. However, we also believe the government should ban the use of embryos for research, which kills the embryos and takes valuable resources away from real cures through adult stem cell research.

 

In 2002 the Iowa Legislature and the Governor rallied together to ban human cloning in Iowa. Yet in 2007, by a partisan vote, the Democrats, who held the majority, repealed Iowa’s human cloning ban. In its place, they passed a new law that permits human cloning for research. Furthermore, the new law does not limit the age in which the cloned human can be developed before it is killed for research. In an effort to deceive the public, the Democrats passed a new law that states that after the embryo is created it can only be used for research and banned the implantation of the embryo. 

 

HUMAN CLONING, WHAT IS IT?
There are now two ways to create new mammalian life, including humans. The first is that great old standard, "sexual" reproduction, in which the male sperm meets female egg introducing 23 chromosomes of the father and 23 chromosomes of the mother, resulting in an embryo with the necessary complement of 46 chromosomes.

 

There is now a second way to reproduce is strictly a human invention — known as "asexual" reproduction —or more commonly known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). This uses a female egg but with the nucleus of her 23 chromosomes removed from her egg and replaced with a donor’s total 46 chromosomes from a skin cell. By fertilizing the egg with the donor’s 46 chromosomes, an embryo is created that is a “cloned” embryo of the donor.   Where before it took the chromosomes of two people, a cloned embryo is made up of one person’s chromosomes. Essentially, men will no longer be necessary for human reproduction through cloning.

 

Proponents of human cloning have made the false claim that the act of cloning is not until implantation. But that is nonsensical, since cloning refers to the creation of a new human organism through asexual means, e.g., somatic cell nuclear transfer. Therefore, once the process of SCNT is completed, the embryo exists and begins to grow.   Implantation is not the act of cloning but rather placement of the cloned embryo. 

 

Iowa has banned implantation of a cloned human, but permits scientists to clone humans for scientific experimentation.

 

 

Many times legislation will define when life begins, as in the “Victims of Violence Act.” Abortion advocates claim that pregnancy begins when the embryo is implanted in the womb, not at conception.

 

In Iowa assisted suicide is illegal.

 

10. Question: Would you actively protect our law by opposing any legislation that would make assisted suicide legal? YES_____NO_____

 

 

 

Click here to see the Survey Responses of the Candidates for Iowa House and Senate.