Many couples struggle with fertility. It can be heartbreaking to want a child and have such great difficulty conceiving one. This issue affects me personally as my wife and I tried for two years to conceive our youngest child and then she was born three months premature. For about six weeks the doctors weren’t sure if our daughter would survive and for about 48 hours they weren’t sure if my wife would survive. It’s an amazing feeling to literally hold your miniature daughter in your hands and have a doctor tell you that maybe you shouldn’t name her as her chances aren’t too good. (The child is now 28 and doing well – she’s brilliant and attractive, like all our children/grandchildren. Her mother is doing well too.)
It is a terrible thing to go through and we feel for any couple who struggles with these issues. But when someone is a politician and uses the issue to score political points, they lose a lot of that sympathy – especially if they lie about it.
Walz spoke openly about the topic of in vitro fertilization (IVF):
Since joining the Democratic ticket as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, Walz has often used campaign speeches to describe the issue of access to IVF treatments as a “personal” matter that concerns him and his family, while telling the story of the journey he and his wife took to conceive their two children.
“For me, this is a very personal thing when it comes to IVF and reproductive care,” Walz told supporters at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, earlier this month. “When we wanted to have children, we went through years of fertility treatments.”
And in a July MSNBC interview, he continued to attack Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance for opposing a bill that would have guaranteed access to IVF nationwide while seemingly tying the treatment to the birth of his two children.
“Thank God for IVF, my wife and I have two beautiful children,” he said.
There is only one way to take that last sentence; Walz was clearly implying a causal connection here by saying, “Thank God for IVF” and then “…my wife and I have two beautiful children.” But the problem? He’s lying. They didn’t operate IVF. Tim Walz lied. Gwen Walz clarified this on this topic:
Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz clarified in a statement to CNN that she did not operate artificial insemination to conceive and revealed recent details about her and Governor Tim Walz’s fertility issues after the governor raised her experience with infertility during the election campaign.
In her statement, Gwen Walz said they used a different fertility treatment, namely intrauterine insemination.
Ouch.
On the sister site Twitchy, Sam J. really made Tim Walz sweat:
There is NOTHING real about this guy.
And Democrats want him to be just a stone’s throw away from leading the country.
Yes.
Check this out:
At Tim Walz’s very first rally with Kamala after being announced as her running mate, he repeated the IVF lie.
His entire election campaign is based on lies. pic.twitter.com/n4Wgf2AQoD
– Libs from TikTok (@libsofttalk) 20 August 2024
In compact, Tim Walz has proven himself to be fundamentally dishonest. Nothing he says can be taken for granted. If Tim Walz told me the sky was blue, I would look out the window.
See also: Trump signals robust support for IVF after Alabama Supreme Court ruling
Alabama passes bill to save IVF clinics; Governor Kay Ivey signs it
Here’s the point: This lie about IVF, about Walz’s fertility issues, is particularly egregious. In some ways, they’re worse than Tim Walz’s claims of stolen bravery. Tim Walz is exploiting an issue that touches millions of people on a deep emotional level. He’s trying to connect with other people struggling with fertility issues by comparing himself to them in a way that hits them at a point where it’s almost impossible to think rationally, especially if they’ve had to resort to medical intervention to get pregnant — or if they’ve resorted to medical intervention and still couldn’t get pregnant.
And he lied about it.
I’m glad Tim and Gwen Walz were able to have their two children, and I hope they are robust and joyful. But the procedure they used, while still a medical procedure, is not the issue being debated in Alabama and elsewhere. Intrauterine insemination is a completely different procedure that does not involve the extracorporeal fertilization that some people find problematic. It shouldn’t be an issue, but it is. And Tim Walz used that difference to sway voters.
And he lied about it.
That’s what it comes down to, right? Tim Walz is a liar. He was caught lying about his military service; in fact, he continues to lie about his military service. Now he’s been caught lying about his wife’s fertility problems and his wife and the steps they’ve taken to have children.
Tim Walz is a liar. Nothing he says can be taken at face value. If he says the wind is blowing, soggy your finger and hold it up in the air, because he’s probably lying about that too.
