For Tim Walz, the Political Battles Over Fertility Treatments Are Personal

For Tim Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, the fight over fertility treatments is not only about politics—it’s about his own family. 

The Minnesota governor is open about how he and his wife, Gwen Walz, conceived their children Hope, 23, and Gus, 17, through a challenging journey of fertility treatments. Now he’s sharing his personal experience with voters on the biggest political stage in the country while the future of the procedure is in jeopardy.

In Philadelphia on Aug. 6, Walz talked about fertility treatments in his first appearance with Harris since she chose him as her running mate. He said IVF is “personal” to him and chronicled the many emotions he felt when going through fertility treatments. “That includes IVF, and this gets personal for me and my family. When my wife and I decided to have children, we spent years going through infertility treatments. And I remember praying every night for a call for good news, the pit in my stomach when the phone rang, and the agony when we heard that the treatments had not worked,” Walz told the crowd. “So, it wasn’t by chance that when we welcomed our daughter into the world, we named her Hope.”

Walz then tied his personal experience back to the campaign’s commitments to reproductive rights as a whole, saying that when he and Harris talk about freedom, they “mean the freedom to make your own health care decisions.”

On Aug. 19, Gwen clarified that the couple did not use IVF specifically on their fertility journey, but rather intrauterine insemination (IUI) treatments. In an interview with Glamour, she acknowledged that the Alabama court case on IVF specifically is what encouraged her husband to speak about their family’s fertility journey on the campaign trail.

“Knowing that pain, I cannot fathom the cruelty of politicians who want to take away the freedom for couples to access the care they need,” she said. 

She also said she hopes “other families find solace in our story,” and that she’s been “greatly touched” by those who have chosen to share their own experiences with her.”

The Harris-Walz campaign has made it clear that protecting abortion rights, IVF, and fertility treatment are all policy priorities if they win the White House in November. The issues have taken on new urgency after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and the Alabama supreme court ruled in February that frozen embryos have the legal rights of children.

After bipartisan pushback, Alabama lawmakers passed laws protecting IVF providers so the services could resume in the state. But with IVF’s future uncertain in states that have fetal personhood laws, Democrats and reproductive rights advocates believe Walz’s ability to speak from personal experience about fertility matters will be a powerful asset to the ticket.

Read More: IVF Changed America. But Its Future Is Under Threat

“Voters respond when politicians are able to demonstrate not just that they understand how much it matters that we restore these rights and these freedoms, but they also understand what voters are going through, and it speaks to their own personal values,” says Jessica Mackler, president of EMILYs List, an influential political organization that aims to elect pro-choice women. “And so if voters are hearing these stories, they are looking at somebody and saying, ‘This is somebody I can trust to lead on this issue.’”

Walz’s initial remarks about fertility treatments resonated with voters. Brittany Stuart, a Virginia resident whose 5-year-old was conceived through IVF in Alabama, says she sees in Walz not just a politician, but someone who understands “how hard it is to make a child.” Stuart says she did three years of fertility treatment and still has a frozen embryo in Alabama. 

“Infertility is hard enough on families, so to have it further demonized is just like, why are we doing this?” Stuart says. “So to hear Walz talk about his daughter openly… it speaks volumes.” Stuart says that her job in the news has prevented her from publicly supporting or donating to a candidate previously, but she plans to donate to the Harris-Walz ticket.

Read More: Where Tim Walz Stands on the Issues

Walz’s experience with fertility treatments is also clearly top of mind for the Harris campaign; his biography on the campaign website says that his personal connection “further cement[s] his commitment to ensuring all Americans have access to this care.”

While Walz is being introduced to a wider swath of Americans this week, this isn’t the first time he has publicly discussed his family’s journey to conceiving children. 

After the Alabama supreme court ruling in February, Walz took to Facebook to express his disappointment, pointing again to his children as examples to the success of fertility treatment. “Don’t let these guys get away with this by telling you they support IVF when their handpicked judges oppose it,” Walz said in the post. “Actions speak louder than words, and their actions are clear. They’re bringing anti-science government into your exam room, bedroom, and classroom.”

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee in 2024, nominated a raft of conservative judges to the judiciary during his first term, including three of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices who decided to overturn the constitutional right to abortion. This year, Trump criticized the Alabama ruling and expressed support for IVF. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, previously voted against the Right to IVF Act, which would have expanded nationwide access to fertility treatment, though he supported a separate 

Republican-led bill that would have stripped Medicaid funding from states that prohibit IVF. Vance recently has come under fire for his resurfaced comments about the Democratic Party as a party of “childless cat ladies.” 

According to a Pew Research Center survey done in April, seven-in-ten adults believe that IVF access is “a good thing,” while only 8% say that it’s a “bad thing.”

With that political backdrop, there’s even more pressure on Walz—he’s in “the hot seat” now that he’s chosen to be a champion for IVF, says Barbara Collura, president of RESOLVE: The National Fertility Association. “We love public awareness about this, but I can tell you that it's not enough to say you support IVF,” Collura says. “Just talking about it doesn't actually get people insurance coverage.”

Collura is no stranger to Walz’s story. RESOLVE is a non profit patient advocacy organization, which provides support groups, public awareness campaigns, and public policy around insurance coverage for IVF. They also have an annual “Advocacy Day” in which members of their community come together to speak to members of Congress—an event which Walz spoke at back in 2017. “Anytime somebody is brave enough to get up and talk about their infertility story, it's going to make a big difference on those of us who've gone through this,” Collura says.

Marilyn Gomez, who was seeking fertility treatment in North Carolina, hopes that Walz’s openness will bring reproductive rights to the forefront not just nationally, but in the 13 gubernatorial races and the many state elections in 2024. She says it’s hard to feel excited, but she’s “cautiously optimistic.”

“There are a lot of people that don’t know that IVF is on the line,” Gomez says. “When I watched [the Aug 6. rally] live, it was very moving, but also I just couldn't believe that in 2024 we’re still talking about it.”

Correction, August 21

The original version of this article misstated how Walz's children were conceived. Though Walz has publicly thanked IVF and said it is personal to him, his family used a different kind of fertility treatment, not IVF.