For Tim Walz, protecting reproductive freedom means minding “your own damn business”

On the third night of the Democratic National Convention, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz said reproductive freedom was critical to Harris-Walz's presidential candidacy.

As governor of Minnesota, Walz said, he fought to protect reproductive freedom because Minnesotans respect the personal choices of their neighbors. “And even if we wouldn't make those choices for ourselves, we have one golden rule: Mind your own damn business. And that includes IVF.” [in vitro fertilization] and fertility treatments.”

“If you've never experienced the hell of infertility, I guarantee you know someone who has,” he added, describing the sinking feeling in his stomach he felt every time the phone rang and the “absolute agony” of learning a treatment had failed.

Both of Walz's children were born through intrauterine insemination. He said the reason he is sharing his story is so that freedom will be on the ballot in the next election.

Last year, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos were legally equivalent to children, forcing IVF providers to suspend their services until the state legislature passed a law protecting them from liability.

Republican Senator JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican candidate for vice president, voted against a bill to protect IVF while criticizing the “childless left” that has no interest in the country’s future.

Preventing gun violence

“When Republicans use the word 'freedom,' they mean that the government should have the freedom to invade your doctor's office, that corporations should have the freedom to pollute your air and water, and that banks should have the freedom to take advantage of their customers,” Walz said. “But when we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people you love, the freedom to make your own health care decisions, and, yes, the freedom for your children to go to school without fear of being shot in the hallway.”

As a veteran and hunter, I believe in the Second Amendment, but I also believe it is our primary responsibility to keep our children safe,” he noted.

In 2018, during his campaign for governor, Walz wrote an editorial in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and stated that he would no longer accept donations from the National Rifle Association. In 2023, he signed a gun safety bill that included background checks and a “red flag law,” a measure that allows law enforcement to confiscate firearms from people a court deems dangerous to themselves or others.

“That's what this is about, the responsibility we have to our children, to each other and to the future we are building together, where everyone is free to live the life they want to live,” Walz said. “No matter who you are, Kamala Harris will stand up and fight for your freedom to live the life you want to live, because that's what we want for ourselves, and that's what we want for our neighbors.”

Project 2025

Walz then turned to his opponents, former President Donald Trump and Vance, and explained what he believed to be their Republican agenda: “Project 2025.”

In April 2022, Trump spoke about Project 2025 at a conference hosted by the Heritage Foundation, which led the project. “They will lay the groundwork and develop detailed plans for exactly what our movement will do,” he said.

Since then, Trump has repeatedly tried to distance himself from Project 2025. “I have no idea who is behind it,” he said in a Facebook post in July. Vance, in turn, has written the foreword for a forthcoming book being written by Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation.

As a former football coach, Walz argued that if someone creates a playbook, they intend to implement it.

If Trump and Vance are elected, they would raise costs for the middle class, repeal the Affordable Care Act and “hollow out” Social Security and Medicare, he said.

“And they will ban abortion across the country, with or without Congress,” he added. “That's an agenda that no one asked for. It's an agenda that benefits no one except the wealthiest and most extreme among us.”

Earlier that evening, Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D) explained the project's rules to voters.

“Here on page 562 it says that Donald Trump could use an obscure 19th century law to single-handedly ban abortion in all 50 states and even put doctors in jail,” he said, referring to the Comstock Act of 1873, which prohibits the mailing of “obscene materials and articles used to induce abortions.”

“On page 455 of Project 2025, it says that states must report miscarriages to the Trump administration,” Polis continued.

In fact, the report states that in order to combat “abortion tourism,” the Department of Health must ensure that each state reports accurately “how many abortions take place within its borders” and in what form, including spontaneous abortions, stillbirths and induced abortions.

On Wednesday night, television legend Oprah Winfrey praised previous convention speakers who shared stories about their personal choices, including stories of Hadley Duvall, who was raped by her stepfather and became pregnant at age 12, and other women who suffered dangerous miscarriages.

The only reason to share such private tragedies is to make sure they don't happen to anyone else, Winfrey said. “Because if you don't have autonomy over it… if you can't control when and how you bring your children into the world and how they are raised and supported, there is no American dream.”

In his remarks, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (DN.Y.) focused on Harris' plans.

“Kamala Harris and the Democrats in the House will protect Social Security, protect Medicare, protect Medicaid, protect the Affordable Care Act, protect working families, protect small businesses, protect the middle class, protect our children, protect our seniors, protect our veterans, protect our unions, protect our dreamers and always protect a woman's freedom to make her own choices when it comes to reproductive health care,” he said.

Jeffries also compared Trump to an ex-boyfriend who is “on the edge” and trying to get back together with America. “Brother, we broke up with you for a reason… there's no reason for us to ever get back together.”

Washington writer Joyce Frieden contributed to this story.