How Tim Walz Has Been a Champion for Reproductive Rights, From Abortion to IVF
The Washington Post/Getty Images/Amanda K Bailey
With his addition to Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential ticket on August 6, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz stepped into the political spotlight—and since then, perhaps nothing has been more clearly illuminated than his bright record on reproductive rights.
In one of his first campaign events, Walz clarified that “freedom,” to him, includes “the freedom to make your own health care decisions,” sharing the personal experience that he and his wife Gwen had with fertility treatments. Within hours of his nomination, far-right activists used Walz’s support of a law stipulating free menstrual products in public schools (!) as fodder for (what they viewed as) an insult: a meme of his face on a tampon box plastered with the phrase “Tampon Tim.” And plenty of headlines reminded us, too, that he’d joined Harris in her recent visit to a Minnesota Planned Parenthood—the first time a vice president has publicly visited an abortion provider.
It wasn’t long before reproductive rights orgs like the National Organization for Women, Reproductive Freedom for All, and Planned Parenthood released statements celebrating his selection, calling Walz “a longtime champion of sexual and reproductive health” and naming the duo “the most pro-reproductive freedom presidential ticket in US history.”
There’s arguably no stronger signal that Harris could send to the public about the importance of reproductive rights in her campaign than the choice of Walz as her running mate. Read on to learn what he’s said about abortion, IVF, and more, and how he’s backed up his words with action.
On abortion
Walz was the first governor in the country to sign abortion rights into state law after the fall of Roe, ensuring that Minnesotans would retain autonomy over their own health care decisions no matter who sits on future courts.
But he didn’t stop there: Next, he signed a “shield bill,” protecting people who travel from out-of-state to have abortions in Minnesota, as well as their providers, from any legal attacks or criminal penalties from elsewhere—a big deal given that Minnesota is surrounded by states with abortion bans or highly restrictive policies, like Iowa, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas.
Walz also took steps to undo legislation aimed at limiting reproductive freedom, signing a bill that removes a bunch of abortion red tape, like a mandated 24-hour waiting period between counseling and the procedure, and a provision that an abortion has to be performed by a physician (all of which was also previously deemed unconstitutional by a Minnesota district court judge). Plus, Walz has made moves to pull state funding from so-called “crisis pregnancy centers,” which are widely known to provide misleading information in an attempt to sway people away from abortion.
Speaking candidly on abortion with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in March, Walz said, “I think old white men need to learn how to talk about this a little more. And I think the biggest thing is: Listen to women. Listen to what they’re saying.” At one of Walz’s first campaign events, he practiced what he’d preached, responding to an audience member chanting, “My body, my choice!” without missing a beat: “Damn right, it is.”
On fertility and IVF
Walz has spoken on multiple occasions about his support of IVF as a topic that’s relevant not only to people trying to get pregnant, but also to anyone who has one of these folks in their life—and Walz, of all people, should know, because he and his wife struggled with infertility for seven years.
During several of his first campaign events, Walz expressed the unique agony of striving and failing to conceive. To attendees in Glendale, Arizona, he said: “When we wanted to have children, we went through years of fertility treatment. And I remember it like it was yesterday, just waiting for good news. Then the phone would ring, and you would be tensed up. And then you would hear that the treatments had failed…. It would blot out the sun that you just wanted something so beautiful and so simple to have a child.” As Gwen recently shared with Glamour, the couple used a treatment called intrauterine insemination (IUI), which involves placing sperm directly into the uterus (and is often a first-line approach before IVF). When it was finally successful for them, and the Walzes’ daughter was born, “we didn’t hesitate at all. We named her Hope,” Tim told crowds in Detroit. As his campaign bio states, Walz’s personal experience with fertility treatment cements “his commitment to ensuring all Americans have access to this care.”
When an Alabama Supreme Court ruling threatened access to IVF in February—it said that embryos (whether in utero or in vitro, a.k.a. outside the body) are children and therefore protected under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, meaning anyone who discards them could face potential legal consequences—Walz took to Facebook to express his disapproval: “Don’t let these guys get away with this by telling you they support IVF when their handpicked judges oppose it. Actions speak louder than words, and their actions are clear. They’re bringing anti-science government into your exam room, bedroom, and classroom.”
Alabama lawmakers moved quickly to grant legal immunity to IVF providers in the state, allowing them to offer the treatment without fear of liability—but not all are convinced that IVF is 100% legally safe, given that the ruling deemed embryos as people. While some Senate Republicans have claimed IVF is not in jeopardy anywhere in the country, they also blocked the passage of the Right to IVF Act, which would’ve legally protected access to this fertility treatment nationwide. In the wake of this mess, Walz told the Star Tribune that “extra clarity is needed” in the language of the primary Minnesota abortion-rights law he signed to be sure it also safeguards IVF. His reason is refreshingly simple: Everyone should be able to decide how to plan for and build their own family. “Even if we wouldn’t make the same choice for ourselves, there’s a golden rule: Mind your own damn business,” Walz said to crowds in Philadelphia.
On menstruation
Remember the A-for-effort attempt by Republicans to deride Walz as “Tampon Tim”? It sprang from his signing of a bill to ensure menstrual products would be freely available in Minnesota public schools. The misdirected jab was intended to flame Walz for allegedly requiring tampons and pads to be stocked in boys restrooms, specifically; but what the law actually stipulates is that the products be available “to all menstruating students in restrooms regularly used by students in grades 4 to 12” (without a gender specification). Which, honestly, is great, because people of all gender identities can have a period.
Far from insult-worthy, the law is a commendable step in fighting period poverty, in particular. With free menstrual products provided at school, kids can go about their days focused on their studies—not worrying about whether they’ll bleed through their underwear. Not to mention, it’s far from the first law of its kind; 28 states and the District of Columbia either require free menstrual products be provided in schools, offer funding for that, or both.
By surfacing the “Tampon Tim” moniker, Republicans actually brought more attention to the progressive law, as Hillary Clinton wrote on X: “How nice of the Trump camp to help publicize Gov. Tim Walz’s compassionate and common-sense policy of providing free menstrual products to students in Minnesota public schools! Let’s do this everywhere.”
On family leave and child care
If you were to just follow the money during Walz’s tenure as governor, one thing would be super clear: He’s committed to investing heavily in future generations and the people raising them. (We love to see it!) Perhaps his biggest accomplishment in that realm is signing into law the Midwest’s first statewide paid leave program, which goes into effect in January 2026; nearly all workers will be eligible to receive up to 12 weeks of paid leave for medical reasons or family care, or a maximum of 20 weeks, if you take off for both. (Just 12 other states and DC have a similar offering.)
A few other major wins: Allocating $311 million (over the next several years) to Early Learning Scholarships for lower-income students up to age 4, and $316 million to increase the wages of childcare providers; ensuring Minnesota public schools offer free breakfast and lunch to all students, regardless of income; and expanding the state’s child tax credit to $1,750 a year per child, making it the highest in the country. Clearly Walz has taken big strides toward his goal to “make Minnesota the best state in the country for kids to grow up.”
And we have all the reason to think he’s bringing the same vision to the Harris campaign. When he was recently asked by Ezra Klein what should be passed first by a new Democratic administration, he replied with paid family and medical leave. “We’re the last nation on earth basically to not [have a federal paid leave program],” he said. “It is so foundational to just basic decency and financial well-being. And I think that would start to change both finances [and] attitude—strengthen the family.”
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This article was updated on August 22 to reflect that the Walzes used IUI—not IVF—to have their first child, Hope.
Originally Appeared on SELF