DES MOINES, Iowa — GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy took his campaign to the steps of the Iowa State Capitol Tuesday, throwing his support behind a swiftly moving “heartbeat bill” that would limit most abortions in the Hawkeye State after six weeks of pregnancy.
The Ohio biotech entrepreneur met with Republican state legislators and Governor Kim Reynolds as a special legislative session to take up the bill got underway amid loud opposition from hundreds of pro-abortion activists. A state trooper at one point had to break up protesters.
The bill was expected to pass by Tuesday evening.
In an interview with The Iowa Star, Ramaswamy called the special session a celebration of the pro-life movement and for basic tenets of federalism and the separation of powers.
“When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with Dobbs, that paved the way for what’s possible today — leaving the states to do the work of the states,” he said on the sidewalk beneath the high Iowa Statehouse hill. “I think the Supreme Court of this state got it wrong, but the duly elected governor and the duly elected legislators are able to step up and do what they were given a mandate to do.”
“It’s a celebration of how a constitutional republic works,” Ramaswamy added.
Reynolds called the special session last week, following last month’s rare deadlock 3-3 ruling that kept in place a lower court decision blocking implementation of the 2018 heartbeat bill. At the time of its original passage, Roe v. Wade granted federal protections for abortion. That changed in June 2022, when a conservative-led U.S. Supreme Court struck down the nearly 50-year-old Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Dobbs puts abortion law back into the hands of the states.
More than a year after the landmark ruling, more than a dozen states have enacted strict limits on abortion, with several more, like Iowa, poised to pass wider restrictions. In Texas, where a similar heartbeat bill has been in effect since September 2021, nearly 10,000 more babies have been born in the Lone Star State, according to a report published late last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Post-Roe v. Wade polls show a strong majority of Americans surveyed (69 percent, according to Gallup) said abortion should generally be legal in the first three months of pregnancy. A Des Moines Register poll in March found 61 percent of adults in Iowa surveyed said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
But most Americans oppose abortion later in pregnancy, polls consistently find.
A Des Moines Register reporter on Tuesday asked Ramaswamy how his pro-life position squares with the “will of the people.”
“I think Iowa today is living proof that that is not a factually grounded assertion in this state,” the 37-year-old candidate said. “It’s a fact that every one of those legislators who is voting for this piece of legislation today and the governor have been very clear about their position over time and have won by wider and wider margins.”
“They did not confuse or delude anyone into what their position was. To the contrary, they had a mandate to do exactly what they’re doing today,” he said, calling the reality of Iowa as a deepening red state the will of the people.
But as he has been wont to do in his “American Revival” campaign, Ramaswamy also praised the pro-abortion protesters gathered at the Capitol during Tuesday’s debate — including the ones following him, screaming out obscenities and calling him a fascist.
Campaigning in Ottumwa, IA, Monday evening, the anti-woke crusader invited a leftist protester to join him just as she was being escorted from the town hall event. Kayla Crist, of Stanwood, Io,wa first attempted to shout down Ramaswamy, yelling out during his remarks, “Protect our women” and “Republicans are raping people.”
“If somebody non-consensually rapes me, I’m not having their child,” Crist told the candidate, adding that she is a mother. “It’s my choice, it’s my body.”
While Ramaswamy disagreed with the woman’s beliefs on abortion, he praised her for being a mother and for the courage to speak her mind.
“Even if we have our disagreements, I want to say thank you for that. So thank you,” he said.
I’m in Iowa right now with Vivek Ramaswamy who was just interrupted by a single mother who believes it’s her body and her choice. Watch and hear his response. pic.twitter.com/8Tg4vVFPiz
— Link Lauren (@itslinklauren) July 11, 2023
Ramaswamy has been a frequent visitor to the first-in-the-nation caucus state since launching his run for the White House in February.
The millennial Republican has been rising in GOP presidential primary polls.
An Echelon Insights poll released last week found Ramaswamy (10 percent) third among the crowded field of candidates, seemingly eroding some support from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (16 percent). Former President Donald Trump continues to dominate the national and state polls, with 49 percent of respondents in the Echelon poll backing Trump.
Ramaswamy will be back in Iowa on Friday for the FAMILY Leadership Summit in Des Moines. The nationally-watched event is billed as “the Midwest’s largest gathering of Christians seeking cultural transformation in the family, Church, government, and more.”
He’ll be joined by fellow GOP contestants DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, U.S. Senator Tim Scott, and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson.
Notably absent, Trump, who campaigned in western Iowa on Friday.
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
