Having been elected to Congress by six votes with 22 votes not counted Mariannette Miller-Meeks has gone from being pro-choice on abortion to stringent right to life.

At the Ottumwa League of Women Voters Republican debate on May 31, 2018 for the primary in Congressional race Miller-Meeks said:

“I’m also Catholic. I am pro-choice… Ultimately as a doctor and a health care provider I think these are decisions that are best left to providers the doctors and to patients. I don’t want the government in my health care decisions.”

But on July 15, 2022, on the House floor Congressperson Miller-Meeks said:

“The Supreme Court recently took the important and correct step to return the power to regulate abortion back to State legislators and voters within the individual States.”

Milller-Meeks has done a 180 degree turn from being “pro-choice” and not wanting “the government in my health care decisions.”

Miller-Meeks also voted against a House bill that passed to allow women to cross state lines to obtain abortions.

Will Gov. Kim Reynolds and Miller-Meeks place “pregnancy test stops” on highways leaving Iowa manned by Iowa Highway patrol carrying machine guns to prevent women going to Illinois or Minnesota to obtain abortions?

Will women, even rape victims be allowed to take the “morning after pill” which prevents pregnancy from occurring?

50 years ago, pregnant women at the University of Iowa wanting an abortion were able to go to New York City (with chaperones) without the state of Iowa stopping them.

Today’s Republican Party in states such as Idaho and Tennessee allow the family of a rapist to sue his rape victim, and I feel certain that there are such Republican Monsters in the Iowa State Legislature that will move to stop pregnant women from going out of state to obtain abortions.

The answer is to in the election defeat the likes of Miller-Meeks, Reynolds and Sen. Chuck Grassley.

50 years ago, as a student at the U of I, a woman I was in two classes with and gave me rides to my apartment asked me to take “Good” notes in a philosophy class.

She said she was going to New York City to accompany a woman who needed an abortion. A year before the Roe v. Wade decision, women in Iowa City were arranging flights for women needing an abortion along with “chaperons” to accompany them.

Since that time, I have been pro-choice on the issue of abortion.

Miller-Meeks voted against a bill that would allow pregnant women to cross State lines to obtain an abortion.

Apparently if a woman becomes pregnant in Iowa, to Miller-Meeks she is a prisoner who cannot leave Iowa to a free state where she might obtain an abortion.

All of Iowa’s elected Republicans seem to believe the same thing.

• Michael Lamb, UI alum, Burlington, IA

Columns reflect the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Editorial Board, The Daily Iowan, or other organizations in which the author may be involved.