At a press conference, US Rep. Zach Nunn avoided answering a question about his abortion record in Iowa and how it connects to the near-total ban that recently went into effect.
Rep. Zach Nunn, Congressman for Iowa’s Third District, avoided a question this week about his connection to the near-total abortion ban that passed the Iowa Legislature last year and is now in effect.
At a press conference at Polk County Life Services Center, a member of the audience asked about the difference between the 2018 abortion ban Nunn voted for, and the one that passed in 2023.
“As we talk about critical life services and health services, I can’t help but take the opportunity to ask you about reproductive health services for women. I see that as a critical need,” the woman said.
Nunn didn’t answer her question, instead pivoting to a discussion of in-vitro fertilization, or IVF.
What the record shows
Nunn did vote for Iowa’s near-total abortion ban in 2018 that would have banned abortion as early as six weeks—before most people know they’re pregnant—after electric pulses are detected in an embryo.
Nunn isn’t responsible for the 2023 ban, but Iowa Republicans have said the 2018 ban, which Nunn did vote for, was “nearly identical.”
“The Iowa Supreme Court questioned whether this legislature would pass the same law they did in 2018, and today they have a clear answer,” Reynolds said in a press release after the law was passed in July 2023.
President of the Iowa Senate Amy Sinclair said multiple times in 2023 that the bill was the same, and used that to justify the bill being introduced, debated, and passed in one day.
“In some ways this debate tonight feels like the old movie ‘Groundhog Day,’” she said in 2023. “That’s because the bill before us is not new to this chamber. In fact the language in this bill is nearly identical to the language of existing Iowa code…language that was in fact ushered through the subcommittee and committee processes in both chambers. It was debated thoroughly on the floor by both chambers…and finally it was messaged to the governor and signed into law in 2018.”
While Nunn hasn’t supported a national abortion ban, he has said that he thinks all abortions should be illegal in the US without exception.
He told a podcaster in 2022, “In the extremely rare situation of rape or incest, we want to be able to have a conversation in consultation with the doctor there, but we need to remember this is not just a conversation between a woman and her doctor. This is also a conversation about the future of that child, and that needs to be taken into consideration.”
He has also voted for legislation that would restrict abortion, including:
- Prohibiting the Secretary of Defense from reimbursing military members and their families for abortions.
- Promoting government funding for crisis pregnancy centers (also known as anti-abortion centers, non-medical clinics that threaten and lie to pregnant people to make them keep their pregnancies)
Pivot to IVF
Instead of answering the abortion question, Nunn pivoted to his support of funding for IVF.
“Just to kind of quickly share about the things that we’ve made a real commitment to, in just my first 18 months on the job in Congress: Making sure we got access for all families to have critical resources, particularly when it comes to funding for IVF, so someone can start a family,” he said.
Nunn signed on to a resolution in May this year that simply states IVF is important for infertility. But resolutions don’t have any force of law—they’re mostly used for political messaging—and it doesn’t offer any solutions to access or promises to protect the right to use IVF. Only 16 members of the House—all Republicans—signed onto it.
In June, Nunn cosponsored the Helping to Optimize Patients’ Experience (HOPE) with Fertility Services Act. It aimed to improve access to fertility treatments in part by making private insurance plans cover infertility treatment. The bipartisan bill hasn’t gone anywhere in the Republican-controlled House.
He has not supported other IVF-protection efforts like the Access to Family Building Act, which provides a right to access to reproductive technology like IVF.
Since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade with the Dobbs v Jackson decision in 2022, Nunn has said the decision on abortion belongs to the states.
“Good people are going to disagree on abortion,” he said Monday. “What I know is true is that Dobbs gave this back to the states, and the states are working really hard on this.”
