Tim Walz's wife admits they never used IVF, despite him claiming they did

Kamala Harris' running mate Tim Walz has repeatedly said that he and his wife Gwen used in vitro fertilization (IVF) to conceive their children. Now, CNN reveals, in Gwen's own words, that this isn't true. Walz used his own family's story of struggling with infertility as a political talking point to back his views on the reproduction industry, including abortion access.

Gwen Walz said that the couple used intrauterine insemination, a process colloquially called the turkey baster method, and not IVF, which involves the external fertilization of an egg which is then implanted into a woman's uterus. Intrauterine insemination involves placing sperm either near the cervix or into the uterus during a woman's ovulation.

"Like so many who have experienced these challenges, we kept it largely to ourselves at the time – not even sharing the details with our wonderful and close family. The only person who knew in detail what we were going through was our next door neighbor," Gwen Walz told CNN.

"She was a nurse and helped me with the shots I needed as part of the IUI process. I’d rush home from school and she would give me the shots to ensure we stayed on track."

That difference hasn't stopped Walz from spreading the message that he and Gwen benefited from IVF. "This one’s personal for me about IVF and reproductive care," Walz said during a campaign stop in Arizona. "When we wanted to have children, we went through years of fertility treatment." On MSNBC in July, he made similar comments, going further to say "Thank God for IVF, my wife and I have two beautiful children."

Walz has repeatedly invoked his own experiences when discussing IVF and restrictions against abortion in the US. Being pro-abortion is one of the only policies that the Harris ticket has advocated for resolutely. Abortion access is something Harris wants to legalize at the federal level so that no state can restrict it by age of the woman or gestation period—at least that's what her record indicates.

Tom Elliott put together an epic thread of all the times Walz has made the false claim.

The allegation from Democrats is that Republicans want to ban IVF, despite many, many Americans making use of the fertility process to grow their famlies, regardless of their political views. Gwen Walz said that the couple started talking about their fertility treatments after changes in Alabama law that stated that every embryo has rights. This means that the hundreds if not thousands of abandoned embryos resulting from the IVF process cannot simply be thrown out with the trash.

"After seeing the extreme attacks on reproductive health care across the country – particularly, the efforts in Alabama that jeopardized access to fertility treatments – Tim and I agreed that it was time to formally speak out about our experience," she said.