As we’ve previously reported, a bill was signed by Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, banning abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected.

The polarizing issue has drawn some opposition from the new law. State Representative Chip Baltimore was one of a few House Republicans that voted against the bill. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio there were many reasons why he voted against the bill, and he understands both sides, but he describes one major factor of how he made his ultimate decision.

“The goal of the proponents of the bill is to obviously get it passed, get sued, run it through the courts and take it up to the US Supreme Court in hopes that the US Supreme Court will approve of the law. Then dial back some of the rights granted by Roe v. Wade and that’s one more step to banning all abortions. I think that’s a failed strategy from a legal perspective and I look at it as a lawyer. I know that there are moral arguments on all sides of this fence and at a certain point in time I question whether the government necessarily the appropriate moral authority on many of these things as well.”

Greene County Democratic Party Chair Chris Henning says one of their platforms, unanimously voted on at the county convention, is supporting a woman’s right to make their own reproductive choices. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio that the Greene County Democratic Party believes the law is seriously flawed.

“We think that a more productive use of the legislative time would be to support family-planning services, counseling for young and low-income and underserved populations, and then (supporting) adequate and meaningful sex-education in schools. And we think that with those kinds of efforts, we could actually see fewer unwanted and unplanned pregnancies.”

To hear more from Baltimore on his reasons for voting against the bill, listen to tomorrow’s Community State Bank in Paton Let’s Talk Greene County program.