The Iowa Senate race and abortion
The Iowa Senate race is careening towards election day at breakneck speed. The Democrat candidate for Senate, Josh Turek, supports abortion. His website states that he opposed Iowa’s Heartbeat Law, which saved the lives of 979 Iowa babies last year alone:
“Josh also believes that women should make decisions about their reproductive health care, not politicians, and wrote and sponsored legislation to repeal Iowa’s extreme, near-total abortion ban.”
If elected to the Senate, he would work to codify abortion rights and restoring Roe v Wade nationwide, undoing all of the protections for the unborn Iowans voted for over the past dozen years.
The Republican candidate, Ashley Hinson, is pro-life. Her Congressional website says:
“I am pro-life and pro-family and will remain a strong and consistent voice for mothers and their children. We must protect the unborn and stand up for the sanctity of life. Taxpayer dollars should not fund abortion providers or abortions. This funding should be used to support family planning options and essential women’s healthcare services. I will fight to ensure that taxpayer dollars support mothers through community health centers, including those that provide care to women in underserved areas.”
This year’s Senate race is particularly significant. Democrats promise to end the filibuster if they regain control of the Senate. Senate prognosticators say that outcome is likely:
- Polymarket Prediction Markets say Democrats have a 62% chance winning both the House AND Senate.
- Nate Silver’s Forecast Model says Democrats have a 74% chance of regaining the Senate.
- General Forecasters said Democrat chances of Senate control range from a 60% to 87% likelihood.
How do Democrats end the filibuster?
The left-leaning Brookings Institute wrote about a number of ways this could occur. The most likely is what has been dubbed the ‘nuclear option,’ which requires only a majority vote in the Senate:
“A more complicated, but more likely, way to ban the filibuster would be to create a new Senate precedent. The chamber’s precedents exist alongside its formal rules to provide additional insight into how and when its rules have been applied in particular ways. Importantly, this approach to curtailing the filibuster—colloquially known as the “nuclear option” and more formally as “reform by ruling”—can, in certain circumstances, be employed with support from only a simple majority of senators.”
How could Democrats nationalize abortion?
With a simple Senate majority, then, Democrats could pass the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA) which contains these provisions:
- Codification of abortion rights at the federal level.
- Preemption of state restrictions. All of the pro-life legislation passed in Iowa and around the country would be undone.
- The WHPA would bar government at all levels, local, state, and federal, from restricting human abortion before viability, which accounts for 99% of all abortions.
Is the end of the filibuster a sure thing if Democrats retake Congress?
No. Some propose reforming the filibuster, not ending it. Iowa Senate candidate, Josh Turek, calls for a return to the traditional filibuster, which requires a Senator to physically speak on the Senate floor to block legislation (see Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington above).
Ashley Hinson supports the filibuster, saying,
“the Senate filibuster should remain in place as a ‘guardrail’ against partisan power swings.”
Pulse Life Advocates is a 501(c)(3)non-partisan, non-profit organization that promotes pro-life matters in the public and private square. This election cycle provides a stark contrast between Senate candidates on the pro-life issues that matter to Iowans.
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