(NewsNation) — Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz shared personal experiences with in vitro fertilization (IVF) during his first joint campaign appearance with presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Tuesday.
Speaking to a capacity crowd of 10,000 at Temple University, Walz criticized Republican stances on reproductive rights and health care decisions.
“In Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and their personal choices that they make, even if we wouldn’t make the same choice for ourselves,” Walz said. “That includes IVF.”
The Minnesota governor spoke about his family’s struggle with infertility, recounting years of treatments before welcoming his daughter.
“When my wife and I decided to have children, we spent years going through infertility treatments,” Walz said. “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 hadn’t worked.”
Walz tied reproductive freedom to the Democratic ticket’s broader message on personal liberties.
“When Vice President [Harris] and I talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to make your own health care decisions,” he said.
Walz said talking about IVF “gets personal for me and my family.”
“It wasn’t by chance that, when we welcomed our daughter into the world, we named her ‘Hope,’” he told the crowd.
Gwen and Tim Walz married in 1994 and have two children, Hope and Gus. Their oldest child, Hope, was born after Gwen Walz underwent seven years of fertility treatments.
Abortion opponents have been increasingly pushing for broader measures that would give rights and protections to embryos and fetuses, which could have massive implications for fertility treatments and other areas of health care.
Democrats routinely cite IVF concerns as part of a larger problem where women in some states are getting worse medical care since the fall of Roe vs. Wade, linking delayed IVF care to cases in states with abortion restrictions, where women must wait until they are very sick in order to get care.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.