U.S. Rep. Susan Wild and her challenger for the 7th Congressional District, Lisa Scheller, debated before a lively audience at Muhlenberg College in Allentown Thursday morning.

Lively is putting it politely. It was more like unruly. There was heckling and loud outbursts from the audience while the candidates were answering questions.

Hosted by the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce’s President and CEO Tony Iannelli, the event was held for the taping of Iannelli’s show Business Matters on WFMZ. The topics included gun laws, abortion, immigration, world affairs and more.

On the topic of abortion, Wild said she doesn’t think late term abortions are performed as often as the Republican party says they are.

“If there is any woman that gets so close to the end of her pregnancy that it actually has to be terminated, there must be something terrible going on with that pregnancy and that fetus,” Wild said. “There is no physician alive or at least none that would be able to maintain their license who would perform what the GOP calls a partial-birth abortion.”

Scheller replied that partial-birth abortions are performed every day.

“I oppose late-term and partial-birth abortions absolutely. But you know, there are, it’s one issue among other issues that the people in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District are talking about. And what they’re talking about also is inflation and what it is doing to our seniors.”

The taping for the first show ended with abortion and the taping for the second show for Business Matters began with gun rights. Iannelli asked if there is any movement on the second amendment that would change gun regulations.

Scheller started the debate by saying that the issue really has to do with crime.

“We don’t need to take guns away from law-abiding citizens. We need to make sure that guns are not in the hands of people who maybe have mental health problems or criminals who are going to use those guns to threaten us and our children,” she said.

Scheller went on to say that she wants safer communities and to support law enforcement. Wild replied she agrees with Scheller that she also wants safer communities and supports law enforcement.

“People who lawfully own guns, I’m not looking to take them away or to deprive them of their right to do so. They can have a gun. They can have 10 guns. Whatever they feel the need for as long as it’s being used properly,” Wild said. “What we need to do as a society is we’ve got to make sure that the people who are hurting the rest of us who are law abiding citizens don’t have access to guns. We cannot have people with violent backgrounds be able to buy guns.”

Wild said the law needs to be changed to require that FBI background checks come back before a gun can be sold. She said that right now, a person can buy a gun before the background check comes back.

Scheller said Wild doesn’t support the police, but cheered on supporters of the Black Lives Matter protests that chanted to defund the police.

“You voted to terminate qualified immunity for our police officers and that is going to prevent them, anyone from ever wanting to sign up to be a police, a law enforcement officer,” she said.

Wild replied that she voted for four democratic bills to support the police and help police departments attract and recruit new personnel, because they all need more people.

For their closing remarks, Iannelli asked each candidate to state their priorities if they are elected. Scheller was asked to go first.

“Some of the first things I want to work on is inflation. We have to stop the reckless spending that is going on. We have to open up Pennsylvania’s energy, and we have to make our communities safe,” Scheller said.

Wild said, “My first priority is, of course, continuing to work to lower prices. That is something we absolutely have to continue to work on and deal with. We’ve made progress, but we haven’t made enough progress.”

Wild also said health care coverage for everyone is important to her and that she would continue to support the manufacturing sector. She said she wrote a bill that passed called the Regional Innovation Hub Act. It would create 20 manufacturing hubs around the country.

“My determination is that Pennsylvania 7 is going to be one of those 20. We are ideally suited for it,” she said.