The two Democrats running for Iowa’s U.S. Senate seat clashed over their records on abortion access in a May 14 televised debate.
State Rep. Josh Turek, D-Council Bluffs, and state Sen. Zach Wahls, D-Coralville, participated in the hourlong debate hosted by KCCI and Gray Media on the second day of early voting before the June 2 primary.
The candidates are seeking to become the first Democrat to win a U.S. Senate race in Iowa since 2008. The seat is open this year after Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst said she would not seek reelection.
The winner of Iowa’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary will face the winner of the Republican primary between U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson and former state Sen. Jim Carlin.
The moderators, KCCI Chief Political Reporter Amanda Rooker and Gray Media Political Director Dave Price, asked the candidates about a host of issues, including tax policy, affordability and maternal and reproductive health.
It’s the second debate between the two candidates. Iowa PBS hosted the first on May 5.
Both candidates called for codifying Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized the right to abortion nationwide.
But, during the debate, Wahls called out Turek for missing votes on abortion-related legislation as a member of the Iowa House.
“Rep. Turek has missed votes on the six-week abortion ban, on the fetal personhood bill that threatened IVF and also on the mandatory anti-abortion indoctrination that Kim Reynolds was pushing for,” he said. “I’m very proud to have a record that I would put second to none and in the United States Senate; I will fight to protect maternal health and reproductive rights for every Iowa woman.”
Turek called Wahls “disgraceful” for attacking him over missing the 2023 special session when Republicans passed Iowa’s current six-week abortion ban.
“He knows exactly where I was, and, honestly, it’s disgraceful,” Turek said. “I was sick with a condition for my disability, and I had put out a statement about that. I have always been proudly pro-choice.”
Turek said in his legislative newsletter at the time of the 2023 vote that “due to a serious medical issue related to my disability I was unable to attend the vote on Tuesday. I want to apologize to all of my constituents for not being able to cast my vote against this bill on your behalf.”
Turek’s campaign has said he missed a 2024 vote on a bill that would have defined a person as beginning at fertilization because he was attending the Christopher Reeves Foundation’s Legislative Summit in Washington, D.C., to advocate for research funding for people with disabilities. The conference was scheduled before the legislature’s debate calendar was released.
And Turek’s campaign said he missed a 2025 vote on a pregnancy education bill Democrats said promoted misinformation because he was asked to speak to the Disabled Law Student Association at Syracuse University College of Law, which was also scheduled before the Legislature had released its debate calendar.
“I’m someone that believes that health care is a human right, and within that human right is access to women’s reproductive freedom,” Turek said in the debate.
He blamed Iowa’s six-week abortion ban for contributing to Iowa’s OB-GYN shortage and said he introduced a bill in the Iowa House to repeal the law.
“The very first thing that we’ve got to do, and what I give you my pledge on, is that in the United States Senate I will work to codify Roe v. Wade for every single woman,” Turek said.
Wahls said the federal government needs to go further in protecting reproductive rights.
“We absolutely need to codify Roe,” he said. “And we need to make sure that we are not just doing that but codifying the right to contraception, codifying the right to technologies like IVF and making sure that women’s private health data is not being weaponized against them.”
Wahls introduced bills in the Iowa Senate that would have done those things and he said he’d fight for similar legislation at the federal level.
“I will be a champion for Iowa women’s reproductive freedom in the U.S. Senate the same way that I have been in the Legislature,” he said.
“Rep. Turek voted with Republicans on a bill that Kim Reynolds was pushing to quadruple state taxpayer funding for crisis pregnancy centers,” he added. “These are the fake health care clinics that lie to Iowa women when they are vulnerable and seeking help. In the United States Senate, I will push to defund these clinics to make sure that they are not receiving taxpayer support.”
Turek called Wahls’ claim “fundamentally incorrect.” While he voted for Reynolds’ bill at the committee level in 2023, he voted against the final version on the House floor.
The wide-ranging bill that the committee considered would have not only provided funding for pregnancy resource centers but also allowed prescription-free birth control and provided grants to rural health care, including establishing fellowships for OB-GYNs in rural areas.
“I have always been proudly pro-choice,” Turek said. “I will fight for women’s reproductive freedom and in the United States Senate I will do all that I can to codify Roe v. Wade.”
Wahls said Turek had the chance to offer an amendment to Reynolds’ bill in committee and he didn’t do so.
“His answer does not explain why he was the only member of the Iowa Legislature who is a Democrat not to introduce or cosponsor a single piece of legislation during his first three years in the Legislature until he decided to run for the (U.S.) Senate,” Wahls said. “Rep. Turek introduced 90 bills during that time. Not a single one of them had to do with reproductive rights or maternal health.”
Stephen Gruber-Miller is the Capitol bureau chief for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com, by phone at 515-284-8169 or on X at @sgrubermiller.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Zach Wahls, Josh Turek clash on abortion records in Iowa Senate debate
Reporting by Stephen Gruber-Miller, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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