CV NEWS FEED // While serving as governor of Minnesota, Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz signed a pair of bills that analysts say effectively allowed forced abortions in the state.
Wednesday night, Walz took the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where he accepted his party’s nomination.
On August 6, National Review senior writer Dan McLaughlin scrutinized two bills Walz signed last year: the Protect Reproductive Options (PRO) Act and S.F. 2995.
McLaughlin’s piece was published the same day Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris announced she had picked Walz to be her running mate.
“Under Tim Walz, Minnesota went from a pro-choice state to a radically pro-abortion state at the expense of pregnant women,” McLaughlin wrote.
The two aforementioned bills “repealed Minnesota’s prohibition on coercing women into having abortions,” McLaughlin asserted:
They stripped out of the state’s laws the requirement that women give informed consent — indeed, any consent — to an abortion. They guaranteed an unqualified right to abortion up until the moment of birth, and even gutted protections for children born alive after abortion.
>> A LOOK AT TIM WALZ’S RECORD <<
McLaughlin discussed the implications of the PRO Act, which Walz “enthusiastically supported and signed into law” in January 2023:
The PRO Act enshrined in Minnesota law a “fundamental right to . . . obtain an abortion” with no limit in time — all the way to the moment of birth — and immune from any more restrictive regulation by local governments. … the language of the PRO Act is sweeping and categorical, leaving no possible room for restriction of abortion at any time or for any reason. The resistance of Walz and his allies to any amendment limiting third-trimester abortions makes plain their intent on that score.
Walz signed into law S.F. 2995, which McLaughlin described as “more comprehensive,” just four months later.
This bill in particular, McLaughlin wrote, “swept away nearly all the protective and modestly pro-life features of existing Minnesota law.”
McLaughlin explained:
S.F. 2995 repealed a section stating that “family planning shall mean voluntary action by individuals to prevent or aid conception but does not include the performance, or make referrals for encouragement of voluntary termination of pregnancy.”
…
S.F. 2995 also repealed a prohibition on using schools to push abortion or contraception on minors, which had read: “No funds provided by grants made pursuant to this section shall be used to support any family planning services for any unemancipated minor in any elementary or secondary school building.”
S.F. 2995 further repealed Section 145.925’s informed-consent provisions, including eliminating the requirement that women be told they are free to withdraw their consent
>> REACTIONS TO THE WALZ PICK: ‘MOST ANTI-CATHOLIC TICKET EVER’ <<
On August 7, the day after McLaughlin’s piece was published, pro-life researcher Michael New wrote in another National Review article: “It gets even worse.”
“Data from the Minnesota Department of Health indicate that since Governor Walz was inaugurated in 2019, eight babies survived abortion attempts in Minnesota,” wrote New:
On five occasions, no measures were taken to preserve life. On three occasions, only comfort care was provided. Tragically, all of these babies died. Instead of strengthening protections for these children, SF 2995 repealed the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, which was intended to provide legal protection for infants who survived abortions.
