Earlier this month, both the Iowa House and Senate passed versions of a so-called “feticide” bill: in short, legislation that would apply penalties to doctors who provide abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. In its current form, the bill makes exceptions for the life of the pregnant person, but not for rape, incest or fetal abnormalities that would preclude a newborn living very long past birth, or being born alive at all.

Legislation surrounding feticide is nothing new – there is a law currently on the books in Iowa that makes it a felony after the second trimester of pregnancy (about 27 weeks). But the language used in the instance of the current bill has to do with what would otherwise be legal abortion, and it is deliberate: “feticide” is meant to sound more devastating and more destructive than “20-week abortion ban.” By its very nature, it puts the life of the fetus, wanted or not, before the life of the person carrying it. The term “feticide” undermines choice and assigns blame to people whose only offense is seeking out legal, safe and necessary medical care.

The bill, which was being debated in the Iowa House as recently as Wednesday afternoon, would make performing an abortion after 20 weeks a class “C” felony – even by a doctor – with language that defines “life” as beginning at fertilization. In both Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), it was acknowledged that fetal viability – the time after which most states make it illegal to perform an abortion – was around the start of the third trimester.

It is plain to see that these bills only serve to harm pregnant people. In 2010, a Burlington, Iowa, woman was arrested and charged with attempted feticide after police said she intentionally fell down a flight of stairs because she didn’t want any more children. The charges were dismissed after her doctor testified she was not yet in her third trimester when the fall occurred – therefore not allowing the punishment for attempted feticide to take effect.

Then, in 2012, a bill was introduced in the Iowa House that would not only make feticide a class “A” felony — and attempted feticide a class “B” felony — but would ban all abortions, no matter what stage of pregnancy. Bills like this are common among conservative legislators as informal challenges to Roe v. Wade, and while six-week abortion bans are routinely overturned in court, legislators’ reasonings for introducing such restrictive legislation are simple: they want to outlaw abortion and do not care who is harmed in the process. (Rep. Steve King, noted non-lawyer, even introduced a nationwide six-week abortion ban earlier this year in which he ruled Roe v. Wade is “unconstitutional.”)

According to the Guttmacher Institute, only 1 percent of abortions take place after 20 weeks — and 58 percent of people wish they could have gotten one earlier. For some, this might serve as further reason to institute a 20-week abortion ban, as so few people would be affected by it. But limiting access to medical care – again, care that is legal, safe and necessary even after 20 weeks – is not taking constituents’ needs into account at a most pivotal and personal time in their lives. Iowa legislators would do well to vote against the current feticide bill and uphold the dignity that comes with choice.