Iowa

Why IVF advocates worry Iowa could become the next Alabama over ‘personhood’ legislation

Published

2 years ago

March 10, 2024

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Why IVF advocates worry Iowa could become the next Alabama over ‘personhood’ legislation

Karen Mathes says she owes “her whole being” to in vitro fertilization.

Seventeen years ago, the 41-year-old Polk City resident and her husband began IVF to start a family. An eating disorder in college meant Mathes had a suppressed ovulation cycle, prompting the couple to seek out fertility treatment at Mid-Iowa Fertility in Des Moines.

After two rounds of treatment, Mathes and her husband welcomed three children: a daughter in 2009 and twin sons in 2012.

“I owe my whole being to Dr. (Brian) Cooper and Mid-Iowa Fertility. If they weren’t there, there was no way that I would have the family that I have,” Mathes, who is now a nurse at Mid-Iowa Fertility, told the Des Moines Register.

“I’m not really sure of how many other jobs where you can help create life and help people basically reach their dreams of being parents,” she said. “I don’t really know of anything else out there that could really satisfy me as much as finding the first heartbeat for somebody’s first child after they’ve been struggling for 5 or 10 years.”

But recent court rulings and legislation are raising fears that IVF treatments may be in jeopardy.

Shock waves swept through the industry, and throughout the rest of the country, recently after the Alabama State Supreme Court ruled that embryos created through IVF should be legally considered children. Hospitals and fertility clinics paused treatments in the days that followed.

Last week, Alabama state lawmakers gave final approval to legislation to protect IVF providers and patients from criminal and civil liability. The bill has yet to be signed into law by Alabama’s governor.

The Alabama ruling has no direct impact in Iowa, but it has opened the door to questions about the possible impacts to IVF care in Iowa from providers like Mathes and Cooper, the physician at Mid-Iowa Fertility.

In particular, providers and advocates worry about the potential legal ramifications of existing Iowa law defining “unborn child” and from new legislation state lawmakers are considering that furthers the effort to define fertilized embryos as “personhood.”

“We’re tampering in ground that is difficult for science to define, which makes it exceedingly more difficult for politicians to define,” Cooper said.

Existing Iowa law defines fertilized embryo as ‘unborn person’

Iowa Code Chapters 146A and 146B define “unborn child” as an individual organism of the species homo sapiens from fertilization to live birth.

That language was established in Iowa as part of the law that passed in 2017 establishing Iowa’s current 20-week abortion ban. Under that provision, the language applies only to doctors performing abortions in Iowa.

While this existing law doesn’t directly pertain to regulation of fertility care, its language has the potential to cause ramifications in Iowa similar to those that played out in Alabama, according to legal and medical experts interviewed by the Register.

Alan Ostergren, president of the Kirkland Institute and a prominent conservative attorney, said plaintiffs in a lawsuit could use that language to argue any loss of embryos is not destruction of property, but instead a wrongful death.

As in Alabama, that distinction would be up to Iowa’s courts to decide. So far, no lawsuit has set that kind of precedent, Ostergren said.

“Whether their damages would be for the destruction of their property or would have been a wrongful death claim, those plaintiffs would have to persuade the Iowa Supreme Court that the law should recognize that embryo as a child and not just an embryo,” Ostergren said. “There’s not a code section right now that would directly answer that question.”

Legislation Iowa lawmakers are considering this session, House File 2575, uses the same language as existing law. The bill, which was approved by the Iowa House on Thursday, would create stricter penalties for terminating a person’s pregnancy without their consent. That bill is awaiting a Senate vote.

Another bill, House File 2518, uses the same “unborn person” definition to allow Iowans to bring wrongful death lawsuits over “wrongful death of an unborn child,” which would include a fertilized embryo.

Republican lawmakers are trying to tamp down fears that the same thing that happened in Alabama awaits Iowa.

“These bills were not crafted with the intention of having any effect on IVF, and they don’t make any changes to IVF in Iowa,” Melissa Saitz, a spokesperson for Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley, said in a statement. “The Alabama Supreme Court has no effect on Iowa law. As always, the speaker will continue to seek feedback from Iowans on any legislative changes they would like made on this topic in the future.”

More: House votes to raise penalty for killing an ‘unborn person.’ Democrats say it endangers IVF

What are the implications for IVF treatment?

To Cooper, the physician at Mid-Iowa Fertility, the personhood statute does not mean IVF treatments could not take place in Iowa.

However, he said it would pose huge ramifications for key pieces of that care, including genetic testing and disposing of leftover embryos.

“I think we would still be able to do some treatment, but it can significantly limit what we’re able to do and take some of our most useful tools away,” he said.

If fertilized embryos are defined as persons, Cooper said, it’s unclear whether providers would be allowed to discard or donate frozen embryos that patients don’t want to use.

To fertility care providers, perhaps the most concerning aspect are the implications for genetic testing, which clinics rely on to detect abnormalities and otherwise ensure patients are receiving healthy embryos that are more likely to result in a healthy birth.

In some cases, patients who aren’t struggling to get pregnant seek out IVF treatment to ensure implanted embryos don’t inherit severe genetic conditions, such as Huntington’s disease. Through this method, Cooper said IVF providers have the opportunity to “virtually eliminate” deadly conditions in children.

“Who doesn’t see the positivity in that? But if you define that personhood begins at conception and I have an embryo affected, you’re telling me I’ve got to put that back? That’s where the quagmire comes in,” Cooper said.

What do supporters, critics say about the ‘personhood’ debate?

Iowa’s effort aligns with a longtime campaign nationwide by anti-abortion advocates for governments to define “fetal personhood,” therefore recognizing a fetus as a person and grant them the rights and protections guaranteed to people.

Republican lawmakers dismissed concerns that the bill approved by the Iowa House would have ramifications similar to those playing out in Alabama, stating during last week’s debate that existing Iowa law has not had any effect.

More: Iowa’s GOP Congress members say they’re both ‘pro-life’ and pro-IVF after Alabama ruling

Still, Democrats and other advocates have raised alarms about this effort, particularly since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which opened the door for states, including Iowa, to establish strict abortion laws.

Mazie Stilwell, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood Advocates for Iowa, said the proposed legislation is a “blatant attempt” to further conservative advocates’ anti-abortion agenda in the state. She argued that additional personhood language in Iowa law has the potential to create chaos within the legal system.

“The GOP has power to take away people’s control over their bodies and their lives and, unfortunately, access to IVF is no different,” Stilwell said.

Ostergren argued that the overturning of Roe v. Wade opened the door for legislative scrutiny of certain medical practices, including IVF and surrogacy.

“People have made a mistake if they think that they can just start fertilizing and then freezing embryos in a lab and run a business doing that and have no legal, ethical or moral scrutiny of what they’re doing,” Ostergren said.

Cooper pushed back on that argument, saying IVF treatment and other fertility care is one of the most regulated fields in medicine. He also said the industry has guidelines from multiple medical regulatory bodies to ensure providers are delivering the most ethical care possible.

“They really need to understand what’s already happening before you come in from the outside and try to impose something else, especially when you’re not intimately familiar with what happens in our world,” Cooper said. “You just end up restricting care and taking useful science away from patients that can really benefit from it.”

Mathes disagrees with the push to define fertilized embryos as people, saying that she views those embryos more as “a potential for life.” Without numerous medical interventions and support, many of those don’t grow beyond a bundle of cells.

Even then, she said, there isn’t a guarantee a healthy birth will result.

“It scares me,” she said, “It’s not so black and white. There’s a lot of gray area in the middle. It affects a lot of people, and they don’t understand that. Unless you work in it every day, you would never understand it.”

Reporter Stephen Gruber-Miller contributed to this report.

Michaela Ramm covers health care for the Des Moines Register. She can be reached at mramm@registermedia.com, at (319) 339-7354 or on Twitter at @Michaela_Ramm

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Iowa

‘¿Habla español?’ Iowa schools look overseas to find Spanish teachers

Published

10 hours ago

March 11, 2026

Press Room

‘¿Habla español?’ Iowa schools look overseas to find Spanish teachers

The Exchange Visiting Teachers from Spain helps schools find qualified Spanish teachers.
World language teaching positions are hard to fill in rural areas.

The sounds of Dallas Center-Grimes High School Spanish students singing “¿Por Que Te Vas?” by Jeanette with varying levels of gusto and prodding by teacher Antton Zuazu Hernández may seem like an unusual way to learn.

But the sing-along is how Zuazu Hernández, a native of Spain, helps engage his students and share his culture as part of a teacher-exchange program.

“I feel I’m a messenger in a way, and this is part of the program,” he said. “We’re expected to both bring our culture here and bring your culture back to Spain.”

Zuazu Hernández — who taught English in Spain — is among 26 bilingual teachers in Iowa as part of an exchange program between the Iowa Department of Education and Spain’s Ministry of Education and Culture.

“(The program) was created to address the shortage of qualified Spanish teachers in the state and helps expose students to different world cultures,” said Heather Doe, the department’s spokesperson. “… The Exchange Visiting Teachers from Spain program has been very successful in helping schools, especially in rural communities, hire highly qualified Spanish teachers.”

Iowa has nearly 1,200 world language teachers in kindergarten through college, according to the Iowa World Language Association website.

Some foreign language teachers in Iowa moved to the U.S. and later obtained teaching credentials. Others were recruited to work in Iowa schools.

Iowa schools, including Waukee Community School District, even offer financial incentives as a recruitment tool for hard to fill positions.

“Many of them, like me, will arrive with teaching experience from our home countries, but in the process of validating the credentials in the U.S. we find obstacles,” said Elizabeth Bulthuis, a Waukee High School world languages teacher who immigrated from Ecuador in 2003, “and the validating of credentials also can be lengthy and costly, because of all the educational systems and how they are structured differently.”

Exchange program is beneficial to schools, superintendent

The Spain exchange program — which brings hundreds of teachers to schools across the U.S. — comes with several requirements.

The Spanish teachers must be certified in the language with at least two years of experience, Doe said. Additionally, candidates go through a vetting process at the federal, state and local levels. Teachers also attend a three-day state orientation.

Schools and districts participating in the program pay an $895 fee to offset licensing and orientation costs, Doe said.

The program is a blessing for rural areas struggling to fill positions teaching foreign language, special education, math and science.

“It’s very difficult to even get an applicant,” said Deron Stender, the superintendent at the rural Creston Community School District, “… When I say it’s difficult to even find (the candidates) they don’t exist. And if they do, they’re probably going to be in a larger metro, urban, suburban areas where there’s just more opportunities.”

St. Anthony’s conducts bilingual class for its students

St. Anthony’s Catholic school brings Spanish speaking teachers to the U.S. to teach students the language.

Zuazu Hernández taught Spanish and drove a bus at Creston during the 2024-25 school year. But falling enrollment and budget cuts resulted in his position being eliminated.

A program drawback is teachers only have three-year visas, he said.

“When you have a very good individual that comes to your district from a foreign country after the third year, you still have that need again,” Stender said. “So, we just open it back up to the same program, but you’re doing another refresh of the process, and while that’s a challenge, it’s still better than not having a teacher in the classroom.”

Not every world language teacher comes from Spain

Another issue schools have faced is filling teaching positions for immersion programs.

In the early 2000s, St. Anthony’s started a Spanish-immersion program after several families with children of Honduras and Guatemala descent wanted their kids to have a Catholic school education and maintain their connection to the Spanish language.

“A lot of teachers go to school to teach Spanish, but they go to school to teach it as a standalone Spanish class,” principal Jennifer Raes said. “… We were really searching for teachers that could come here and teach in any subject, just a regular teacher, but also has the skills of teaching in Spanish and English.”

Marisol Guerra, a Honduras native, came to the U.S. in 2010 to help start St. Anthony’s program. Guerra manage to come to the U.S. as part of that year’s Spain exchange program cohort.

More than a decade later, the school offers classes in English and an immersive track where 85% of the students’ day is spent learning in Spanish. While families were hesitant in the beginning to take part in the immersion program, there is now a waitlist of almost a dozen families.

“There was uncertainty, (but) they wanted their children to learn a second language,” Guerra said, “and they wanted without knowing, I think, they also were exposing them to other cultures and opening their minds to other things.”

The over the years, St. Anthony’s has employed teachers who moved to America from Spain, Mexico and other Latin American countries.

The over representation of teachers from Spain likely is due to other countries not offering similar exchange programs, said Bulthuis, a member of the Iowa World Language Association.

It took several years for the veteran teacher — who came to Iowa in 2005 — to become credentialed to teach in the U.S. because she was not part of an exchange program.

“I think that world language teachers can be difficult to recruit because the pool of candidates is relatively small, so teachers need a strong language proficiency, cultural knowledge and all the teaching certifications,” said Bulthuis, who left Ecuador in 2003 because of the country’s financial crisis, “(but) many people who speak another language also have opportunity in other careers.”

Bulthuis does not recommend loosening the criteria to teach in Iowa but suggests improving or streamlining the process for an international teacher to obtain a state teaching license.

“… Not every Spanish speaking country is going to have (an exchange) program like that in place to help their community,” Bulthuis said,

Cultural exchange

Educators say employing international teachers goes beyond language skills.

“International educators can bring tremendous cultural and linguistic expertise to the classroom, which is an incredible skill and very valuable for students,” Bulthuis said.

That cultural exchange can carry over into a school’s lesson plans.

Zuazu Hernández often lets his American students’ interests drive what he teaches them about Spanish culture. These questions have ranged from wanting more insight into bullfighting, the Spanish school system, stereotypes and politics.

“Sometimes, they are more interested in me as a person, or the things I can tell them about Spain than the actual Spanish language,” he said, “but they have that curiosity that I think all teachers, we have to take advantage of.”

While reading “¡Viva el toro!” by Lisa Ray Turner and Blaine Ray, a novel about bullfighting, Zuazu Hernández talked to students about his family’s love of the cultural spectacle and how it is losing popularity in Spain because of how the bulls are treated.

Zuazu Hernández is open about his perspective on the practice to his students.

“To me, bullfighting is not worth sustaining just because it’s a tradition — traditions are not always good or acceptable — but rather because it’s an art, and it expands the depth of human understanding of the most intense truths in life, with death as the scariest of all,” he told the Des Moines Register in an email.

His students appreciate his candidness and the chance to learn from teachers with different lived experiences.

“I like having different teachers because they have different experiences, and I think it adds to the overall class,” said Grace Heston, an 11th grader Dallas Center-Grimes High School. “When you’re learning about Spanish, you’re not just learning about a language, you’re learning about the culture associated with it.”

Samantha Hernandez covers education for the Register. Reach her at (515) 851-0982 or svhernandez@gannett.com.

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Iowa

NCAA Wrestling Championships at-large bids announced

Published

22 hours ago

March 10, 2026

Press Room

NCAA Wrestling Championships at-large bids announced

The 330 wrestlers competing in Cleveland at the NCAA Championships are now set.

After the conference tournaments established the lion’s share of wrestlers, the NCAA announced the at-large bids on Tuesday, March 10, completing the rest of the field.

Brackets and seeds will be announced on March 10, but here’s a look at the contingents each state of Iowa program will be sending after the at-large bids were announced.

Iowa wrestling NCAA qualifiers

For the third year in a row, Iowa wrestling will be sending nine to the NCAA Championships. Victor Voinovich did not earn an at-large bid at 157 pounds after finishing ninth at the Big Ten Championships, one place outside of NCAA automatic qualification. He concludes his season with a 12-6 record.

Voinovich narrowly earned the starting job over Jordan Williams at 157, with Iowa coach Tom Brands saying it was very close, but Voinovich had shown a little more “fight” this year. Now that Voinovich hasn’t qualified for NCAAs, it’s a decision that will go further under the microscope.

What’s done is done, however, for Iowa. They’ll take Dean Peterson (125), Drake Ayala (133), Nasir Bailey (141), Ryder Block (149), Michael Caliendo (165), Patrick Kennedy (174), Angelo Ferrari (184), Gabe Arnold (197) and Ben Kueter (285) to Cleveland in hopes of salvaging what has been a tough season.

Iowa State wrestling NCAA qualifiers

For the first time since 2010, Iowa State will send all 10 wrestlers to the NCAA Championships. Vinny Zerban earned an at-large bid at 157 pounds despite falling short of the automatic qualifying threshold at the Big 12 Championships. Zerban suffered a concussion and medically forfeited out of the tournament after his first match in Tulsa. His health status will be worth monitoring NCAAs inch closer, from March 19-22.

The Cyclones look poised for one of their best postseasons in recent memory with their 10 qualifiers ―Stevo Poulin (125), Garrett Grice (133), Anthony Echemendia (141), Jacob Frost (149), Zerban, Connor Euton (165), MJ Gaitan (174), Isaac Dean (184), Rocky Elam (197) and Yonger Bastida (285). The loss of Evan Frost hurts the Cyclones, considering his pedigree and season as a whole, but Grice’s has earned several ranked wins since entering the lineup in February and could still add some much-needed team points as the team chases a team trophy.

Behind title contenders Elam and Bastida, proven podium threats in Poulin, Echemnedia, Jacob Frost and Zerban (if healthy), Iowa State will be in the mix for a top-four finish in Cleveland.

UNI wrestling NCAA qualifiers

Northern Iowa will send five to the NCAA Championships. Automatic qualifiers Julian Farber (133), Caleb Rathjen (149) and Ryder Downey (165) will be joined by Jared Simma (174) and Nick Fox (184), who each earned at-large bids. The number of qualifiers could extend to six, with Trever Anderson (125) being the alternate at 125 pounds for NCAAs. However, he had to medically forfeit out of the Big 12 Championships, so his health status would be in question if he got called up.

With that, Max Brady (141), Cael Rahnavardi (157), John Gunderson (197) and Adam Ahrendsen (285) will have their seasons come to an end. Brady, a true freshman, will still have three NCAA chances in his career after showing promising moments in relief of Cory Land’s season-ending injury. Gunderson, a U23 World team member, will return for next season as well. Rahnavardi and Ahrendsen were both in their final seasons of eligibility.

Following injuries to Land and Wyatt Voelker, it’s been a hard year for the Panthers. This is half the number of NCAA qualifiers that UNI had last season when they qualified 10 for the first time since 1986. The last time UNI had five or fewer qualifiers was 2016.

However, all five of their wrestlers have each shown moments of brilliance, either this season or in prior NCAA Championships. They may be a smaller crew than normal, but Downey, Rathjen, Farber, Simma and Fox are all ones to watch in Cleveland.

Eli McKown covers high school sports and wrestling for the Des Moines Register. Contact him at Emckown@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @EMcKown23.

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Iowa

DCI agent say he was fired for questioning Iowa college gambling probe

Published

1 day ago

March 10, 2026

Press Room

DCI agent say he was fired for questioning Iowa college gambling probe

A former Iowa investigator is suing the state, claiming he was fired for criticizing a high-profile college sports gambling probe.
Mark Ludwick alleges his termination was retaliation for testifying that investigators conducted illegal searches and were told to mislead students.
The gambling investigation, which led to charges against dozens of student-athletes, has faced legal challenges over its methods.

A longtime investigator for the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation says he was forced out of the agency because he voiced reservations about a high-profile investigation into gambling in college athletics.

Mark Ludwick was hired by Iowa’s top investigative agency in 1997 and was terminated in November 2024, according to a lawsuit filed Feb. 20 in Polk County. According to his complaint, Ludwick was fired after two “frivolous” investigations, one claiming he’d exceeded the speed limit driving to a murder scene, and the other for assistance he provided to a domestic abuse victim.

The real reason, Ludwick alleges, is that officials were embarrassed after Ludwick testified under oath about what he regarded as weaknesses in their sports wagering investigation, which resulted in dozens of Iowa State University and University of Iowa student-athletes facing suspensions, 25 being criminally charged and 19 pleading guilty to underage gambling.

Ludwick testified in early 2024 he believed investigators had conducted illegal searches to identify the online gamblers and that he and other agents had been directed to lie to students about whether they were subjects of the investigation. He also alleged that stress about the case contributed to another agent’s fatal heart attack, although the agent’s relatives disputed the connection.

Now Ludwick is accusing the state of violating Iowa’s whistleblower protection statute. He declined through his attorney to comment. The Iowa Attorney General’s Office also declined to comment, and the Iowa Department of Public Safety, which includes the DCI, did not respond to an inquiry about the case.

Gambling investigation raised constitutional concerns

In the gambling investigation, DCI investigators used software tools provided by GeoComply, a Canadian company that contracts with online sportsbooks like FanDuel and DraftKings, to look for evidence of illegal gambling activity. Using a GeoComply system, the investigators created a so-called “geofence” around college athletic facilities that allowed them to detect student athletes using wagering accounts registered to parents and friends to place bets ― sometimes on their own games.

Although the investigation resulted in numerous arrests and suspensions, it also drew controversy, in particular for agents’ failure to obtain warrants before conducting their location searches. GeoComply, which had encouraged Iowa to use its service, responded by cancelling the state’s access.

A large group of current and former students sued the state, accusing investigators of violating their constitutional rights. In November 2025, a federal judge ruled that the state’s investigation “does not comport with the Fourth Amendment,” which provides protection from illegal searches.

Nonetheless, the court dismissed the lawsuit, finding the officers involved were entitled to immunity. An appeal is pending.

Ludwick’s reservations emerge in depositions

Ludwick was an experienced investigator for the DCI, working on high-profile cases including the 2015 murder of Shirley Carter, whose son was tried and acquitted, and the 2017 deaths of two girls in a fire started by a relative.

While not the lead agent on the 2023 gambling investigation, Ludwick was tapped to assist by interviewing some of the student athletes. He later testified he grew concerned that the state’s geofence searches amounted to illegal, warrantless searches, and declined to participate in the case any further. He alleges that other DCI agents shared his concerns and also maneuvered to avoid being involved in the case.

Ludwick says he reported his concerns to his superiors. In January 2024, he was deposed by defense attorneys for four of the students, and “testified truthfully during his deposition that he believed an illegal search had been conducted.” Defense attorneys cited Ludwick’s remarks within days in filings covered by numerous media outlets, including the Des Moines Register, which “caused embarrassment and increased scrutiny for the Iowa Department of Public Safety, Commissioner Bayens, and other employees,” Ludwick’s suit states.

According to the complaint, officials launched an investigation into Ludwick for speeding on March 5, weeks after the embarrassing testimony was reported. On Aug. 8, officials initiated a second investigation after, Ludwick says, “he attempted to help a victim of domestic abuse flee her abuser.” He denies his actions violated Iowa law or department policy.

William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com or 715-573-8166.

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