An Iowa Senate committee will soon debate a proposal to provide no-cost family planning services to low-income women ages 45 through 54 whose private insurance does not cover the care, the Des Moines Register reports. The proposal would include coverage of comprehensive annual exams, pap tests, cervical cancer screening, birth control and other services. Current law defines child-bearing age as ages 13 through 44.

At least one Iowa physician is speaking out against extending the age limit to 54. Donald Young, a medical director at Mid-Iowa Fertility, said, "The odds of a woman taking home a baby at age 45 is one in 50,000." He added, "The idea that we need to provide birth control/family planning services for women up to age 55 is against basic reproductive physiology and a waste of taxpayer dollars."

Nancy Robertson, a staff attorney and lobbyist for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, noted that birth control is just one of the services that would be covered. An age 45 cutoff is arbitrary because the average woman begins menopause at age 54 and is capable of becoming pregnant before that point, Robertson said (Jacobs, Des Moines Register, 1/30).

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