Just over two weeks after Vice President Kamala Harris announced Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her running mate, Walz has already come under fire for not sharing the truth about things ranging from his 1995 drunk driving arrest to his rank in the military. The latest falsehood has to do with the journey he and his wife went on to begin a family. While the governor implied they used in vitro fertilization, his wife, Gwen Walz, made clear during an appearance on CNN that it was intrauterine insemination instead.
Considering how the Left uses the issue of reproductive rights to demonize the pro-life Right, the distinction is important.
IVF involves fertilizing eggs with sperm in a lab setting outside the uterus. Generally, more than one embryo is created to increase the chances of a successful pregnancy. During fertility treatment, embryos that are not used are frozen, donated, adopted, or destroyed.
On the other hand, IUI greatly increases the chance of pregnancy with a much simpler treatment: “During intercourse, only a few hundred sperm reach the egg under ideal conditions. But with IUI, your doctor places millions of healthy sperm directly in the uterus,” Penn Medicine explains. While the former involves fertilized embryos, the latter involves only sperm.
During a TV interview in July, Walz said, “Thank God for IVF, my wife and I have two beautiful children.” And at a rally this month, he again brought up IVF, saying, “This one’s personal for me about IVF and reproductive care. When we wanted to have children, we went through years of fertility treatment.”
His story certainly won over some listeners. Faith Hill, a staff writer for the Atlantic, published an article on Aug. 8 titled “More People Should Be Talking About IVF the Way Tim Walz Is.” In it, Hill writes of Walz, “His strength doesn’t just lie in the fact that he has experienced IVF; he could champion access to it regardless. What’s special is the way he’s sharing this part of himself. Reproductive rights are almost always framed as a women’s issue. Walz reminds us that they affect men too.”
The Harris-Walz campaign has made “reproductive freedom” an important part of its election season narrative. Harris doesn’t have any biological children of her own. Walz does. This is just one of the reasons he’s portrayed as “America’s dad.” Except the IVF story he has repeated is different from what actually occurred.
Not only is Walz a fabulist, but this particular lie feeds a narrative that Republicans are anti-family. The pro-life community has real concerns with IVF that have to do with the lab-grown creation and possible destruction of a human embryo. Despite that, Harris, Walz, and their fellow Democrats continue to present themselves as the ones who truly care about women. And they do this all while promoting abortion.
The Democrats have no interest in being honest about any aspect of abortion. It is sold as just a routine part of women’s healthcare. Their fervor only increased following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in June 2022. Now, with President Joe Biden out of the picture and Harris at the helm, women’s issues are front and center. Added to that is Walz as he praises IVF and claims Republicans are the bad guys. If one believes both the lies about abortion and Walz’s continued embellishments, it’s a powerful combination.
Protecting the health of both the mother and baby in every pregnancy is the ultimate goal for pro-lifers. A political party that focuses on just the mother is missing the other half of the equation.
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Democrats constantly frame pregnancy as only involving a woman. The value of an unborn human life, in their eyes, depends on whether it is wanted or not. This is a tragedy. Pro-lifers fully understand that life is precious, regardless of location or stage of development. And life is worth defending whether it’s wanted and in the womb or an optional embryo frozen and waiting in a storage facility.
IVF will remain a controversial topic. When it comes to human life, it is imperative politicians speak the truth. This is something Democrats, particularly Walz, would be wise to remember.
Kimberly Ross (@SouthernKeeks) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog and a columnist at Arc Digital.