On Monday, 16 March, the Iowa Chamber adopted a draft law obliging doctors to routinely offer women wishing to have an abortion the chance to see an ultrasound scan of their child and to hear the baby’s heartbeat.
“This gives a woman the opportunity to be fully aware of the life of the child growing inside her”, explains Republican Sandy Salmon. However, opponents to this draft bill view it as “another way of humiliating a woman who has taken the difficult decision not to go ahead with her pregnancy”, as explained by Mary Mascher.
The draft law was adopted by 57 votes to 39. The bill must now be presented before the Senate.
Similar measures making it obligatory for doctors to propose a pre-abortion scan have been adopted in other American states, essentially in Virginia and Texas. This is a controversial measure, which has been rejected in the State of Oklahoma.
WNAX, 16/03/2015, BH Reality Check (Teddy Wilson), 16/03/2015