Emily Boevers is an OB-GYN practicing in Iowa. She lives in Waverly with her husband and children. This essay first appeared on the website of the Iowa Coalition for Reproductive Freedom.

On June 28 of last year, when the Iowa Supreme Court reversed and remanded the prior permanent injunction on a near-total ban on pregnancy termination, the majority utilized the rational basis test, which means the fact that this law inflicts harm on individual rights doesn’t matter. The court held the law is constitutional if it is rationally related to a legitimate government interest.

And so, when the law went into effect on July 29, 2024, women in Iowa were taken back in time, relegated to lesser citizens by the state, and placed squarely behind men and fetuses in their rights.

Now, only two of five clinics previously providing abortion in Iowa remain open for care. Of note, this is a barrier to women, particularly low-resourced women, receiving cancer screenings, contraception, treatment for infections, and a safe place to seek information, not only abortion care. Very pro-life, and especially poignant to reduce care for women that are already struggling to make ends meet.

“It’s been a great pleasure to come back and serve only ten miles from where I grew up,” Dr. Emily Boevers said during an August 22 panel discussion at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. “And it’s my joy to take care of women every day, and women of all ages, and women of many different circumstances.”

But the Waverly-based obstetrician/gynecologist painted a troubling picture of how abortion restrictions harm rural health care access in many ways, putting lives at risk—and not only for those seeking to terminate a pregnancy.