What has also hit the small town of Storm Lake (pop. 10,500) are a number of deeply troubling questions. The most obvious, of course, is who cast the baby into the trash heap—and was the infant born dead or alive? So far the cops have few answers and no more leads.
Almost as pressing is a dramatic debate over how far the police can go to solve the mystery. Investigators, hoping to draw up a list of possible suspects, issued a subpoena to the Planned Parenthood facility in Storm Lake for a list of women who had tested positive for pregnancy during the previous nine months—a decision that drew a local and national outcry from those who saw it as an outrageous assault on the privacy of medical records. "It's a difficult issue," says Duane Olson, a Lutheran pastor in Storm Lake. "One side has the need and desire for justice, and the other side has the whole area of confidentiality."
At the center of the controversy is Jill June, the head of Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa, who has adamantly refused to release the records—and who could go to jail for contempt of court. A 17-year veteran of the organization, June, 55, maintains that confidentiality" is the cornerstone principle of Planned Parenthood. "Investigating women who did nothing wrong but came in to see their health-care provider is just unthinkable," says June, who lives in Des Moines with her husband, John Twedt, 53, a carpentry instructor, and is the mother of three grown daughters. "We won't be a part of it."
June points out that there is no evidence the mother of the discarded baby even came from the area, much less visited Planned Parenthood. She further argues that women who do use the Storm Lake facility, which handles about 1,000 patients a year, would feel especially exposed by any breach of confidentiality in such a small community. "[The police would] knock on the door, have discussions with neighbors and friends, ask questions about how the pregnancy went and where the child is," she says.
That's the general plan, prosecutors say. "The loss of privacy is outweighed by the need to protect life," says county attorney Phil Havens. As law-enforcement officials point out, interviews with individual doctors and local hospital staff provided some leads, but none panned out. Getting the disputed records may be the only way to solve the case. Without the names, says Havens, "barring just getting lucky and somebody coming forward, the investigation is pretty much at a dead end."
In Storm Lake, a largely middle-class community where many people either work in agriculture or a local meatpacking plant, the wrenching debate is seldom far from people's minds. At the office of Heartland Insurance Associates, co-owner Heidi Hansen, 24, and her mother, Carol, 57, a customer-service representative, continue to go around and around on the subject, with Carol supporting Planned Parenthood and Heidi taking the opposite view. "They should not relinquish those records, because that's the only place girls have to go in privacy," says Carol. To which her daughter loudly replies, "It's a dead baby, come on! It's not just medical records."
A judge is expected to rule in the next few weeks on a motion by Planned Parenthood to rescind the order to surrender the records. June, who has endured threats over the years from antiabortion activists, has vowed that no matter what the decision, she will not divulge the names. That may set up a showdown with prosecutors, who have threatened to initiate contempt proceedings if she fails to comply. So be it, says June, who acknowledges that prosecutors are just doing their jobs. It's simply, she says, that "they have just come up with a strategy that is more harmful than good."
Bill Hewitt
Lauren Comander in Storm Lake and Trine Tsouderos in Des Moines
- Contributors:
- Lauren Comander,
- Trine Tsouderos.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
