August 6, 2024 | Press Release
MINNEAPOLIS — Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’ choice as running mate, brings to the presidential race a long track record of abortion-up-to-birth extremism, opposition to protection for vulnerable newborns, and policies that harm elderly and disabled patients.
“Tim Walz isn’t like your favorite grandpa,” said Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL), Minnesota’s largest pro-life organization. “He’s a threat to your grandpa—and to unborn and newborn children, too. He’s a strident ideologue, an abortion absolutist, and an ominous sign of what a Harris administration would portend.”
As governor during the pandemic, Walz allowed the transfer of Covid-infected patients back into long-term care centers, even centers with known infection-control problems, despite the risks to the most vulnerable patients. Walz’s administration also gave nearly $100,000 of Covid relief money to a non-profit specializing in “abortion doulas,” and it temporarily suspended all elective medical procedures (to conserve resources and reduce transmission of the virus)—but made a conspicuous exception for elective abortion.
Later, Walz—who has described his record as “so pro-choice Nancy Pelosi asked me if I should tone it down”—signed into law the PRO Act to establish a “fundamental right” to abortion for any reason and at any time during pregnancy. He then signed a bill repealing numerous longstanding and commonsense abortion policies, including informed consent for women and Minnesota’s Positive Alternatives program that had supported pregnant women and new mothers.
Walz also repealed Minnesota’s requirement that reasonable measures be taken to “preserve the life and health” of born-alive infants, replacing it with a requirement for “care,” which the bill’s author described as “comfort” care. Under the new language, an infant could be denied lifesaving treatment and allowed to die.
In recent years, five born-alive abortion survivors were reported in 2015, five in 2016, three in 2017, three in 2018, three in 2019, and five in 2021, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. This information, however, will no longer be available; Walz repealed the requirement that practitioners of abortion report cases of born-alive infants and the measures taken to care for them.
"Abortions in Minnesota are increasing sharply under Gov. Walz," said Blaeser. "He even recently visited an abortion facility with Kamala Harris to promote the center's work. All throughout his time in government, Walz has shown his commitment to making our state and our nation a haven for unlimited abortion. Women and children deserve better.”
When Walz served in Congress, he repeatedly voted in favor of taxpayer funding of abortion and repeatedly voted against protecting unborn children later in pregnancy when they can feel pain. He co-sponsored legislation that would invalidate nearly all state and federal limits on abortion. And he voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would ensure that newborn babies who survive abortion be treated with the same degree of care as other babies born at the same age (so that they are not neglected, abandoned, or killed). Walz also made clear his strong opposition to protecting abortion survivors on Twitter (now X).