Polar Opposite

On Repro Rights, Tim Walz Is the Polar Opposite of JD Vance

While Vance voted against a Senate bill to protect IVF access, Walz has spoken out about its crucial role in building his own family.

Julianne McShane

One way to sum up Gov. Tim Walz’s (D-Minn.) stance on reproductive rights? It’s pretty much the opposite of Sen. JD Vance’s (R-Ohio) extreme views.

Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’s newly-named running mate for the Democratic ticket, has been a strong supporter of reproductive rights, especially as Republicans have continued to chip away at them post-Dobbs. A sampling of that record: In January 2023, Walz signed a bill enshrining the right to an abortion—as well as contraception and fertility treatments—in Minnesota. A few months later, Walz signed into law another significant reproductive rights bill that protects people who seek or help others access abortion within Minnesota from legal threats from out of state.

But he’s been particularly vocal—in deeply personal terms—about one issue: IVF access.

After Alabama’s state Supreme Court’s ruling imperiled IVF access by stipulating that frozen embryos could be considered children, Walz publicly condemned the decision and posted to Facebook about his family’s experience using IVF: “Gwen and I have two beautiful children because of reproductive health care like IVF,” Walz wrote in February. “This issue is deeply personal to our family and so many others. Don’t let these guys get away with this by telling you they support IVF when their handpicked judges oppose it.” He later told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he and his wife spent seven years going through unsuccessful IVF treatments before they finally got pregnant. They named their daughter Hope, he said, as a tribute to their fertility journey.

Following the selection of Vance as Donald Trump’s running mate, Walz has zeroed in on Vance’s previous opposition to a Senate bill that sought to protect access to IVF after the Alabama ruling. “Thank God for IVF, my wife and I have two beautiful children. [Vance] thinks he needs to dictate that,” Walz said during an appearance on MSNBC last month. Walz then attacked Vance’s anti-IVF vote directly, adding: “I don’t need him to tell me about my family. I don’t need him to tell me about my wife’s healthcare and her reproductive rights.”

William Martin, a spokesperson for Vance, said in a statement, “JD supports access to IVF and has repeatedly made that clear,” adding that he and other Senate Republicans believe the Senate bill was unnecessary given the availability of IVF and support continued access. But even if that’s true, the rest of the Veep contenders’ records on reproductive rights are a study in contrasts.

As I have covered, Vance has said he would support a national abortion ban; argued against rape and incest exceptions; compared abortion to slavery; and said the Department of Justice should use the 19th-century Comstock Act to criminalize “mail-order abortions,” as Project 2025 recommends. (More recently, he has sought to walk back some of his most extreme viewpoints, alleging he supports access to mifepristone and leaving the question of abortion rights to the states.)

Walz, meanwhile, has been full-throated in his support for reproductive rights. “I think old white men need to learn how to talk about this a little more,” Walz told CNN in March after he accompanied Harris to a Minnesota Planned Parenthood, making her the first VP known to have ever visited an abortion clinic while in office.

It makes sense, then, that abortion rights advocates praised Walz’s track record after Harris announced him as her running mate on Tuesday. Jessica Mackler, president of EMILYs List, the PAC that works to elect Democratic women who support abortion, called the Harris-Walz ticket “the most pro-choice” ever. Reproductive Freedom for All, formerly known as NARAL Pro-Choice America, said that Walz “has championed reproductive freedom throughout his career.” Planned Parenthood Action called Walz an “abortion rights champion,” adding, “We could not think of a better duo headed to the White House.”