Tim Walz’s Personal Story Spotlights IVF, Which Could Pose a Problem for Republicans
Walz is highlighting that IVF impacts men as well.
TroibNews 
Earlier this year, when Alabama’s high court declared frozen embryos to be people, temporarily halting in vitro fertilization treatments at some clinics, Democrats capitalized on the decision politically.
Tim Walz offers them another such opportunity.
During a rally in Philadelphia, the Minnesota governor shared on a national stage, for the first time, his and his wife Gwen’s struggles with conceiving. By the following day, he had incorporated this personal story into his stump speech.
“This is very personal for my wife and I,” Walz said to a crowd of 12,000 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. “When Gwen and I decided to have children, we went through years of fertility treatments. I remember each night praying that the call was going to come and it was going to be good news. The phone would ring, tenseness in my stomach, and then the agony when you heard the treatments hadn’t worked.”
For a 60-year-old man running for vice president to share such an intimate anecdote on the campaign trail highlights how central reproductive health care has become in American politics, and how the electoral landscape has shifted since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago.
Walz frames IVF as an important issue for men and fathers, emphasizing that men should care about reproductive health care because it affects them too. This aligns with Democrats’ broader argument that reproductive health is not just a women’s issue.
Walz’s story provides the Harris campaign a tool to highlight that former President Donald Trump is responsible for the fall of Roe and its subsequent effects, from near-total abortion bans in a third of the country to the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling on IVF. It also allows them to criticize Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, for opposing a Democratic bill that aimed to establish a nationwide right to IVF and other fertility treatments.
“That we are here in 2024 and this may be an issue that helps to swing an election shows what a problem Republicans have in the family planning realm,” commented Barrett Marson, a GOP strategist in Arizona.
Following the Alabama decision, President Joe Biden highlighted in his State of the Union address an Alabama woman who had to pause her IVF treatment due to the ruling, and he called on Congress to guarantee access to the procedure.
Recently, Trump and nearly all Republicans have emphasized their support for IVF. However, the most socially conservative portion of their base, including the Southern Baptist Convention, has raised religious and ethical concerns over how IVF is currently practiced in the U.S.
Democrats have leveraged the issue of abortion to secure victories in key races over the last two years, and Republican strategists acknowledge that IVF is another appealing issue in the realm of reproductive health care.
Polling indicates broad support for IVF across the political spectrum. A July AP-NORC poll found that roughly three-quarters of Democrats and 56 percent of Republicans support preserving access to IVF. Pew Research Center data from last fall shows that four in 10 adults in the U.S. have used or know someone who has used fertility treatments, reflecting the increasing age at which women are giving birth.
In response to the Alabama court's decision, which caused clinics to suspend IVF services due to legal uncertainties, Alabama's GOP legislature quickly passed legislation to allow treatments to resume. Trump and other Republican officials have also voiced support for IVF, with the GOP platform endorsing IVF and other fertility treatments.
Some Republican strategists argue that these actions sufficiently neutralize the IVF issue on the campaign trail, and that Walz’s personal story does not enhance its significance.
“Republicans have made it clear that they support IVF — the vast majority of Republicans have. There's no effort to roll back IVF,” said Mark Graul, a GOP strategist in Wisconsin. “I think it's part of just the broader strategy to, from the Democratic perspective, put the spotlight on abortion as much as possible, this just being a piece of that puzzle.”
In June, Senate Democrats forced a vote on legislation that would have established nationwide protections for IVF, putting Republicans like Vance on record opposing it. Despite most Senate Republicans voting against the bill, citing concerns over its scope and threats to religious freedom, many still claim to support broad access to fertility treatments and are promoting alternative legislation led by Sens. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
Walz highlighted Vance’s opposition to IVF in a July tweet, calling it a “direct attack on my family and so many others,” to which Vance has stated he supports continued nationwide access to IVF.
“The preferred outcome of the next 90 days for Donald Trump and JD Vance is to never have to talk about this. But what is clear, last night and in the commitment that both Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz have, and in their personal connection to this, is that they're not going to let the Republicans get away with that,” said Ryan Stitzlein, vice president of political and government relations at Reproductive Freedom for All. “They're going to continue to bring this issue to them every single day between now and November.”
Anti-abortion groups dismiss the impact of Walz’s story. Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life Action, stated that the Minnesota governor’s “abortion mindset taints” the story, noting that his state was the first to enact statutory protections for abortion after the fall of Roe.
“All children need to be welcomed into the world. All children deserve hope and a future,” Hawkins said.
Republicans face a challenge with the anti-abortion movement, which aims to secure personhood rights for fetuses and embryos, affecting IVF. Many states already consider fetuses or embryos as people at some point during pregnancy, complicating fertility treatments given that clinics typically create more embryos than are implanted. This can lead to issues with excess embryos being donated, stored, or destroyed.
Republican-controlled legislatures continue to push for legislation granting embryos and fetuses the same rights as people from conception, which medical professionals argue could limit fertility treatments like IVF and create legal liabilities for accidental destruction of embryos. More than two dozen bills aimed at establishing fetal personhood were introduced in state legislatures this year, though many were halted after the Alabama court decision.
The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest and most politically influential Protestant denomination, voted in June to oppose IVF, signaling a conservative shift on the issue.
Anti-abortion groups celebrated the inclusion of 14th Amendment language in the Republican platform as a potential step towards a Supreme Court ruling that life begins at conception and should be protected.
“The RNC can say whatever it wants, or Trump can, and [Speaker Mike] Johnson — you can get them all on the same page, and then the South Carolina State House passes a bill, and all of a sudden, that drives the conversation,” said Douglas Heye, a GOP strategist. “You have state legislatures that are sort of legislating out loud, and make it very hard for the party, even on something like this, to have a cohesive message.”
Ian Smith contributed to this report for TROIB News
Tim Walz offers them another such opportunity.
During a rally in Philadelphia, the Minnesota governor shared on a national stage, for the first time, his and his wife Gwen’s struggles with conceiving. By the following day, he had incorporated this personal story into his stump speech.
“This is very personal for my wife and I,” Walz said to a crowd of 12,000 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. “When Gwen and I decided to have children, we went through years of fertility treatments. I remember each night praying that the call was going to come and it was going to be good news. The phone would ring, tenseness in my stomach, and then the agony when you heard the treatments hadn’t worked.”
For a 60-year-old man running for vice president to share such an intimate anecdote on the campaign trail highlights how central reproductive health care has become in American politics, and how the electoral landscape has shifted since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago.
Walz frames IVF as an important issue for men and fathers, emphasizing that men should care about reproductive health care because it affects them too. This aligns with Democrats’ broader argument that reproductive health is not just a women’s issue.
Walz’s story provides the Harris campaign a tool to highlight that former President Donald Trump is responsible for the fall of Roe and its subsequent effects, from near-total abortion bans in a third of the country to the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling on IVF. It also allows them to criticize Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, for opposing a Democratic bill that aimed to establish a nationwide right to IVF and other fertility treatments.
“That we are here in 2024 and this may be an issue that helps to swing an election shows what a problem Republicans have in the family planning realm,” commented Barrett Marson, a GOP strategist in Arizona.
Following the Alabama decision, President Joe Biden highlighted in his State of the Union address an Alabama woman who had to pause her IVF treatment due to the ruling, and he called on Congress to guarantee access to the procedure.
Recently, Trump and nearly all Republicans have emphasized their support for IVF. However, the most socially conservative portion of their base, including the Southern Baptist Convention, has raised religious and ethical concerns over how IVF is currently practiced in the U.S.
Democrats have leveraged the issue of abortion to secure victories in key races over the last two years, and Republican strategists acknowledge that IVF is another appealing issue in the realm of reproductive health care.
Polling indicates broad support for IVF across the political spectrum. A July AP-NORC poll found that roughly three-quarters of Democrats and 56 percent of Republicans support preserving access to IVF. Pew Research Center data from last fall shows that four in 10 adults in the U.S. have used or know someone who has used fertility treatments, reflecting the increasing age at which women are giving birth.
In response to the Alabama court's decision, which caused clinics to suspend IVF services due to legal uncertainties, Alabama's GOP legislature quickly passed legislation to allow treatments to resume. Trump and other Republican officials have also voiced support for IVF, with the GOP platform endorsing IVF and other fertility treatments.
Some Republican strategists argue that these actions sufficiently neutralize the IVF issue on the campaign trail, and that Walz’s personal story does not enhance its significance.
“Republicans have made it clear that they support IVF — the vast majority of Republicans have. There's no effort to roll back IVF,” said Mark Graul, a GOP strategist in Wisconsin. “I think it's part of just the broader strategy to, from the Democratic perspective, put the spotlight on abortion as much as possible, this just being a piece of that puzzle.”
In June, Senate Democrats forced a vote on legislation that would have established nationwide protections for IVF, putting Republicans like Vance on record opposing it. Despite most Senate Republicans voting against the bill, citing concerns over its scope and threats to religious freedom, many still claim to support broad access to fertility treatments and are promoting alternative legislation led by Sens. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
Walz highlighted Vance’s opposition to IVF in a July tweet, calling it a “direct attack on my family and so many others,” to which Vance has stated he supports continued nationwide access to IVF.
“The preferred outcome of the next 90 days for Donald Trump and JD Vance is to never have to talk about this. But what is clear, last night and in the commitment that both Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz have, and in their personal connection to this, is that they're not going to let the Republicans get away with that,” said Ryan Stitzlein, vice president of political and government relations at Reproductive Freedom for All. “They're going to continue to bring this issue to them every single day between now and November.”
Anti-abortion groups dismiss the impact of Walz’s story. Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life Action, stated that the Minnesota governor’s “abortion mindset taints” the story, noting that his state was the first to enact statutory protections for abortion after the fall of Roe.
“All children need to be welcomed into the world. All children deserve hope and a future,” Hawkins said.
Republicans face a challenge with the anti-abortion movement, which aims to secure personhood rights for fetuses and embryos, affecting IVF. Many states already consider fetuses or embryos as people at some point during pregnancy, complicating fertility treatments given that clinics typically create more embryos than are implanted. This can lead to issues with excess embryos being donated, stored, or destroyed.
Republican-controlled legislatures continue to push for legislation granting embryos and fetuses the same rights as people from conception, which medical professionals argue could limit fertility treatments like IVF and create legal liabilities for accidental destruction of embryos. More than two dozen bills aimed at establishing fetal personhood were introduced in state legislatures this year, though many were halted after the Alabama court decision.
The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest and most politically influential Protestant denomination, voted in June to oppose IVF, signaling a conservative shift on the issue.
Anti-abortion groups celebrated the inclusion of 14th Amendment language in the Republican platform as a potential step towards a Supreme Court ruling that life begins at conception and should be protected.
“The RNC can say whatever it wants, or Trump can, and [Speaker Mike] Johnson — you can get them all on the same page, and then the South Carolina State House passes a bill, and all of a sudden, that drives the conversation,” said Douglas Heye, a GOP strategist. “You have state legislatures that are sort of legislating out loud, and make it very hard for the party, even on something like this, to have a cohesive message.”
Ian Smith contributed to this report for TROIB News
