DES MOINES, Iowa — The Iowa Attorney General’s Office has paused its observe of paying for emergency contraception - and in uncommon circumstances, abortions - for victims of sexual assault, a transfer that drew criticism from some sufferer advocates.

Federal laws and state regulation require Iowa to pay lots of the bills for sexual assault victims who search medical assist, corresponding to the prices of forensic exams and remedy for sexually transmitted infections. Under the earlier legal professional basic, Democrat Tom Miller, Iowa’s sufferer compensation fund additionally paid for Plan B, the so-called morning after capsule, in addition to different therapies to stop being pregnant.

A spokeswoman for Republican Attorney General Brenna Bird, who defeated Miller’s bid for an eleventh time period in November, instructed the Des Moines Register that these funds are actually on maintain as a part of a evaluation of sufferer providers.

“As a part of her top-down, bottom-up audit of victim assistance, Attorney General Bird is carefully evaluating whether this is an appropriate use of public funds,” Bird Press Secretary Alyssa Brouillet stated in a press release. “Until that review is complete, payment of these pending claims will be delayed.”

Victim advocates have been caught off guard by the pause. Ruth Richardson, CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States, stated in a press release that the transfer was “deplorable and reprehensible.”

Bird’s resolution comes as entry to essentially the most generally used technique of abortion within the U.S. plunged into uncertainty following conflicting court docket rulings on Friday over the legality of the abortion medicine mifepristone. For now, the drug the Food and Drug Administration accredited in 2000 appeared to stay no less than instantly out there within the wake of separate rulings issued in fast succession.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, ordered a maintain on federal approval of mifepristone. But that call got here at practically the identical time that U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice in Washington, D.C., an appointee of former President Barack Obama, primarily ordered the other.

The extraordinary timing of the competing orders revealed the excessive stakes surrounding the drug practically a yr after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and curtailed entry to abortion throughout the nation. President Joe Biden stated his administration would combat the Texas ruling.

In Iowa, cash for the sufferer compensation fund comes from fines and penalties paid by convicted criminals. For sexual assault victims, state regulation requires that the fund pay “the cost of a medical examination of a victim for the purpose of gathering evidence and the cost of treatment of a victim for the purpose of preventing venereal disease,” however makes no point out of contraception or being pregnant threat.

Sandi Tibbetts Murphy, who served as director of the sufferer help division beneath Miller, stated the longtime coverage for Iowa has been to incorporate the price of emergency contraception within the bills lined by the fund. She stated that in uncommon circumstances, the fund paid for abortions for rape victims.

“My concern is for the victims of sexual assault, who, with no real notice, are now finding themselves either unable to access needed treatment and services, or are now being forced to pay out of their own pocket for those services, when this was done at no fault of their own,” she stated.

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