Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz mischaracterized the nature of the fertility treatments that he and his wife, Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz, used to conceive their two children. 

Gwen Walz said in a statement to CNN on Tuesday that she and her husband used intrauterine insemination, or IUI, to conceive, not in vitro fertilization, or IVF, as the Minnesota governor has claimed on the campaign trail. 

“Like so many who have experienced these challenges, we kept it largely to ourselves at the time — not even sharing the details with our wonderful and close family,” Gwen Walz said in the statement, describing the process as “an incredibly personal and difficult experience.”

Since being tapped as running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris, Walz has said the issue of assisted reproductive technology is a personal one for him and his family. But Walz has made it seem as if he and his wife relied upon IVF.

“This one’s personal for me about IVF and reproductive care,” Walz said earlier this month at a rally in Glendale, Arizona. “When we wanted to have children, we went through years of fertility treatment.”

“Thank God for IVF, my wife and I have two beautiful children,” Walz said in an MSNBC interview in July.

Although both IVF and IUI are commonly used to assist couples with fertility problems, they are different medically and politically.

Intrauterine insemination, also referred to as artificial insemination, “is a fertility treatment that gives sperm a better chance at fertilizing an egg,” according to the University of Pennsylvania Medicine.

During the process, doctors collect a sperm sample and “wash” it, removing unhealthy sperm and other debris. Then the doctor uses a thin tube to insert the sperm directly into the uterus, essentially giving the sperm a “head start” in reaching the egg. 

Before insemination, the woman may also have to go through hormonal therapy in order to stimulate egg development and induce ovulation. 

IUI can cost between $300 and $1,000 per round and is often the first step for couples with fertility struggles looking to conceive. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 2.3% of all infants born in the United States every year are conceived using some form of assisted reproductive technology, whether it is IUI or IVF.

About 9% of men and 11% of women of reproductive age in the U.S. struggle with infertility, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Both IUI and IVF fall under the classification of assisted reproductive technology, or ART, but they are very different in the eyes of most anti-abortion advocates. 

While IUI involves the insertion of sperm into the woman’s uterus, IVF involves the insertion of at least one embryo that was created in a laboratory environment. 

In other words, mixing of sperm and egg to create a distinct embryo during IVF takes place outside of the woman’s body, whereas with IUI conception still occurs internally.

During a typical IVF process, multiple embryos are created at a time and only viable, healthy embryos are inserted into the mother with the hope of implantation and a successful pregnancy. 

Anti-abortion advocates commonly take issue with IVF not necessarily because of the creation of life by artificial means but mainly because unhealthy or unwanted embryos are often discarded.

By comparison, IVF has a significantly higher rate of reaching a successful pregnancy than IUI.

IVF became lumped together with partisan debates over abortion and reproductive healthcare this spring when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in a complicated malpractice case that embryos have legal personhood rights. 

Republicans, who have tried to distance themselves from abortion this election cycle, have been divided over policies related to IVF. Some have defended it as pro-family creation, without addressing arguments about the problem of discarded embryos.

This has particularly been an issue for the Senate this summer, where Republicans in a high-profile vote blocked a bill that would have supported all forms of ART.

During the presidential campaign, Walz has used IVF as a point of attack against Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance, who voted against the Democratic IVF bill in the Senate.

Although Walz has taken heat since his wife made clear how they conceived their children, his supporters have argued that Walz used IVF as an umbrella term for fertility treatments.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

“Governor Walz talks how normal people talk,’’ campaign spokeswoman Mia Ehrenberg told the New York Times. “He was using commonly understood shorthand for fertility treatments.”

Since joining the Democratic ticket, Walz has also been embroiled in disputes over inconsistencies regarding his military service record, which many allies have also excused as Walz’s lack of precision with language.