Despite his party’s staunch opposition to terminating pregnancies, Congressman John Curtis, a Utah Republican, has raised eyebrows after saying at a debate this week that he wished women could decide whether abortion should be legal.

“I wish, as a man, I didn’t have to make this decision,” John Curtis said, referring to how the state legislatures which are now empowered to decide the legality of abortion are dominated by men. “I wish women could make this decision.”

Curtis’s remarks came during a debate on Thursday night while seeking re-election as the US House representative for Utah’s third congressional district, a seat he has held since 2017.

The non-partisan Cook Political Report considers Curtis to be solidly Republican, representing an area that includes Provo, a city of more than 100,000 people. Nonetheless, at Thursday’s debate hosted by Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, he expressed a position that prompted a reaction of surprise from his Democratic challenger Glen Wright.

Curtis alluded to the June ruling by the US supreme court’s conservative majority which eliminated the federal abortion rights which the landmark case Roe v Wade established in 1973. Roe’s reversal made each state’s government responsible for determining if getting an abortion was legal in their jurisdiction.

Since the ruling, only 21 American states had laws protecting abortion access, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. Meanwhile, 26 states had prohibited, severely limited or were expected to impede access to abortion.

Curtis, 62, on Friday acknowledged men held most of the seats in the legislatures determining whether pregnant people could legally obtain abortions in their state and that, “if you’re a woman, it stinks”.

“I wish it were other than that,” Curtis added. “I wish, as a man, I didn’t have to make this decision. I wish women could make this decision.”

Nonetheless, Curtis made it a point to clarify that he was “unapologetically pro-life”, a label preferred by those who oppose abortion rights.

Wright glanced upward and moved his head to the side as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing Curtis say. The vast majority of Republicans and their conservative supporters hailed the supreme court’s decision to eliminate federal abortion rights. The South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, one of the GOP’s pre-eminent figures, even proposed that Republicans push for a national ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Republicans were split over Graham’s proposal as November’s midterm elections loomed after some polling has found that as many as 60% of voters support abortion rights in most or all cases.

The Democrats are trying to emerge from the midterms with their razor-thin advantages in both congressional chambers still intact.

Curtis is not expected to have trouble winning another congressional term in his district, according to the Cook Political Report.