Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s elevated profile as Vice President Kamala Harris’ Democratic running mate has led to wider awareness of his staunch support for abortion in his state — including a bill he signed into law last year that removed a requirement to try to save the life of a baby born alive after an attempted abortion. 

A Minnesota law that had been on the books since 1976 required “responsible medical personnel” to use “[a]ll reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice” to “preserve the life and health of the born alive infant.”  

The legislation Walz signed in May 2023 got rid of the word “preserve” and replaced the previous wording with a revised requirement “to care for the infant who is born alive.” 

Pro-lifers say they find that change disturbing. 

“The concern is that the law no longer requires that lifesaving measures be taken. It only requires ‘care.’ So the law as it’s now written could allow a baby to be left to die, even a baby who could be saved with appropriate lifesaving measures,” Paul Stark, communications director with the pro-life group Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, told the Register. 

The law is one of the items the organization cited earlier this week in a statement by its co-executive director, Cathy Blaeser, that called Walz “an abortion absolutist.” 

The same 2023 Minnesota law also removed a previous requirement to report to the state the deaths of aborted unborn babies 20 weeks’ gestation and older and stopped state funding for pro-life pregnancy centers.  

The Register contacted the press offices of the Harris campaign and of the Minnesota governor on Wednesday morning, but did not hear back by deadline. 

 

Comfort Care vs. Lifesaving Care 

The bill Walz signed led to sharp debate last year in the state Legislature, which is narrowly controlled by the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party, which is the state affiliate of the national Democratic Party. 

In 2015, Minnesota enacted a bill called the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which required that the state Department of Health produce a report every year stating the number of babies born alive after an attempted abortion and what happened to them. (The law also restated previously existing language requiring “reasonable measures” to save the life of a baby born alive after an attempted abortion.) 

During the eight years the law was in effect, the state’s health agency reported 24 babies born alive after an attempted abortion. (The breakdown by year is: 2015 (5), 2016 (5), 2017 (3), 2018 (3), 2019 (3), 2020 (0), 2021 (5), 2022 (0).) 

All the babies died. Ten of the 24 cases involved a fatal fetal condition “incompatible with life,” according to the reports. Four babies were medically “pre-viable,” meaning they were deemed too underdeveloped to live on their own. Two were barely clinging to life: one in 2016 had “transient cardiac contractions” and another in 2017 had a low Apgar score, suggesting little chance of resuscitation. 

Eight other cases were described in vaguer language. For seven of them, the reports say, “comfort care measures were provided as planned.” For a baby born alive in 2017, a state report says, “no specific steps taken to preserve life were reported.” 

Supporters of the bill repealing the born-alive law argued that most babies born alive after an attempted abortion have a fatal condition that would cause a quick death after birth. 

DFL state Rep. Tina Liebling of Rochester, the bill’s principal sponsor, said during the state House floor debate in April 2023 that “comfort” care is appropriate in many such situations rather than what she called “aggressive care to keep that infant alive whether or not the parents want that.” 

She said the born-alive act in Minnesota and similar measures in other states serve no purpose other than to make it harder to get an abortion. 

“These laws that were passed, really, I would say, to make abortion more difficult and more expensive, and to demonize doctors, to give the false impression that anyone delivers a child alive and then just lets it die: That just doesn’t happen. That’s not how abortion care works,” Liebling said. 

But comfort care isn’t an appropriate substitute for lifesaving care, said an opponent of the bill, Republican state Rep. Jeff Backer of Browns Valley. An emergency medical technician, he described trying unsuccessfully to save the life of a baby born 21 weeks into gestation in the back of an ambulance. 

The state health agency’s description of “comfort care” offered him cold comfort, he said. 

“They gave those infants so-called ‘comfort care.’ If I gave that infant that was born in the back of the rig only comfort care, I would have been charged with murder. Folks, what are we talking about? Comfort care only?” Backer said. 

“Comfort care means lay on a hard surface, maybe a blanket. Comfort care is not medical lifesaving care,” he said. “That is wrong. … It’s wrong for all of us, to even allow us to put up with that.” 

A supporter of the bill, DFL state Rep. Steve Elkins of Bloomington, cited the case of a woman who gave birth in Florida to a baby with no kidneys who lived for 99 minutes. The woman wanted to abort after getting the fatal fetal condition diagnosis at 24 weeks, but couldn’t because doctors were uncertain about the details of a Florida law that prohibits abortions in most cases after 15 weeks, according to a story in The Washington Post. 

“The lesson for us, members, is that the regulation of these rare, highly complex, and deeply personal tragedies is simply not amenable to legislation,” Elkins said. “Broad-brush attempts to do so, such as Minnesota’s Born-Alive Act, result in the cruel treatment of suffering women and their families without actually saving any lives.” 

But an opponent of the born-alive repeal, Republican state Rep. Peggy Scott of Andover described the language in the new bill as “very vague.” She noted that it doesn’t define “care,” and she argued that everyone deserves potentially lifesaving intervention. 

“Whether that baby lives or dies, that is not up to a human being — another human being — to decide that. In my opinion, that baby should be treated and given lifesaving care regardless of the maladies that baby may be born with,” Scott said. 

The repeal of the born-alive act passed the Minnesota House, 69-64, almost entirely along party lines, with all Republicans against it and all but one of the Democrats for it. It passed the Minnesota Senate, 34-32, entirely along party lines. Walz signed the bill into law on May 24, 2023. 

 

Walz and Abortion 

Walz, 60, who Harris named Tuesday as her running mate, has a long record of support for legal abortion. 

In January 2018, when Walz was a member of Congress, he apologized publicly for accidentally voting in favor of the federal Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act bill. 

The bill, which passed the U.S. House 241-183 but didn’t get a vote in the U.S. Senate, sought to require that “any health care practitioner who is present when a child is born alive” after an attempted abortion “exercise the same degree of care as reasonably provided to any other child born alive at the same gestational age” and “ensure that such child is immediately admitted to a hospital.” 

Walz explained in a tweet that he meant to vote No on the bill, but mistakenly voted Yes because he thought he was voting on an unrelated procedural measure. 

“It was an honest mistake. I meant to vote NO, as I did on an identical bill last Congress. My apologies for the confusion,” Walz said in the tweet. “I’ll keep fighting for women's access to health care.” 

Walz indeed voted against a similar bill in September 2015. 

Walz emphasized his support for abortion during his first (successful) run for governor in 2018. During a speech at his state party convention in June of that year, he ticked off a list of progressive stances he took as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, during a time when Nancy Pelosi was the U.S. House leader of the Democrats. 

“And my record is so pro-choice Nancy Pelosi asked me if I should tone it down. I stand with Planned Parenthood,” Walz said. 

In January 2023, Walz signed a bill into law declaring abortion a “fundamental right” in Minnesota that can be exercised without restrictions at all stages of pregnancy. In his State of the State speech in April 2023, Walz said the bill “established an ironclad right to reproductive freedom.” 

Also last year, he successfully proposed abolishing state funding for pro-life pregnancy centers, which had been in place since 2005. The health bill that redefined the type of care required for infants born alive after an attempted abortion also removed public support for the centers. 

This past March 14, almost five months before he became her running mate, Walz accompanied Harris when she visited an abortion facility in St. Paul, which is believed to be the first time a sitting president or vice president has visited a place where abortions are performed. 

It wasn’t his first time in an abortion facility. He toured the same Planned Parenthood North Central States facility two months before, on Jan. 8, according to KTTC-TV. Before leaving, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Walz told a Planned Parenthood administrator, “We got your back.”