Bob Vander Plaats speaks at the Family Leader rally.
The Family Leader held a midday rally at the statehouse today, urging supporters to lobby lawmakers to pass new abortion restrictions.
Danny Carroll, a former Republican legislator who lobbies full-time at the statehouse for The Family Leader, coached the crowd.
“Contact your legislator or a legislator and let them know that while they may not be able to overturn Roe v. Wade and they may not be able to protect human life from the moment of conception today or this year, they can at least keep your tax money from going to organizations who do provide abortions,” Carroll said.
The group is pressing for a change in state policy that would forbid state tax dollars from being used to perform abortions on Medicaid patients who are rape or incest victims, or who are carrying a fetus with severe abnormalities.
The proposal also forbids state tax dollars from going to Planned Parenthood to cover birth control for low-income women.
“The Bible does not say that the wicked shall rule or that the righteous shall rule,” said Chuck Hurley, another former GOP legislator who is The Family Leader’s vice president. “The Bible says the diligent shall rule and the sad fact is that for the last few decades the pro-abortionists and the homosexuals and the socialists have been more diligent than we have been on public engagement.”
Bob Vander Plaats — a three-time Republican candidate for governor who is The Family Leader’s president and CEO — was the rally’s opening speaker.
“We believe government exists to promote what is good and what is righteous — so if it’s good and righteous, we’re for it,” Vander Plaats told the crowd. “If it is bad and it is against God’s heart, then we’re against it.”
Vander Plaats said his group “honors every gift of life.”
“From conception to natural death — with no exceptions,” Vander Plaats said, to applause from the crowd.
Dan Becker, national field director for Personhood USA, was the keynote speaker for today’s rally.
“Remove the judges, intimidate the court? That’s not an option,” Becker said. “I’ll tell you what is: a state constitutional amendment that finds a right to life.”
The Family Leader was heavily involved in campaigns to defeat Iowa Supreme Court justices who joined the court’s 2009 opinion that legalized same-sex marriage. The issue was raised by speakers at the rally, but a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage was not The Family Leader’s lobbying objective today.
AUDIO of today’s rally 50:00