(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, a Democrat, says the U.S. Supreme Court made a big mistake in overturning Roe v Wade. Republican Brenna Bird says if she’s elected attorney general, she’ll be on the front lines of defending new restrictions on abortion. “I’m 100% pro-life and it would be my job as attorney general to defend the law that the legislature would pass,” Bird says.

Bird says Miller chose not to have his office defend the state when Planned Parenthood sued to block the six week abortion ban Republican lawmakers adopted in 2018. “But in 2021, he defended the waiting period for abortion law until he changed his mind partway through and decided not to defend it anymore,” Bird says. “When I’m attorney general I will do my job and defend the law.” Miller says he did the ethical thing by having private attorneys rather than the attorney general’s office defend abortion restrictions the Republican legislature and governor had adopted.

Miller and Bird. (Iowa PBS photo)

“I’ve represented the state in many ways in cases where I generally disagreed with the policy,” Miller says, “but twice I got to the situation where I thought that given the situation that I couldn’t zealously represent the state — two times out of 40 years — and so I stepped aside.” Miller says he’s opposed to “extreme” abortion policies. “A lot of women feel incredible threats in terms of their liberty and in terms of the freedom to take care of their own medical conditions,” Miller says, “and I support them in that.”

Miller and Bird made their comments during taping of “Iowa Press” which airs tonight (Friday) on Iowa P-B-S.