JD Vance accused Tim Walz of lying about his IVF experience. Fertility doctors say confusion is common.

After he talked about his family's fertility struggles on the campaign trail, Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz is facing criticism from his opponent for not accurately having identified the treatment his wife, Gwen, received.

The Republican vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance, of Ohio, accused Walz on Tuesday of lying about having conceived his children via in vitro fertilization. Vance seemed to be responding to an article in Glamour magazine, in which Gwen Walz said she had undergone a fertility treatment called intrauterine insemination.

“It’s just such a bizarre thing to lie about, right? There’s nothing wrong with having a baby through IVF or not having a baby through IVF. Like, why lie about it? I just don’t understand that,” Vance told reporters in Milwaukee.

“Anybody who’s had a friend or themselves on fertility treatment, you know the difference,” he added.

Both IVF and IUI are forms of assisted reproductive technology. IVF involves retrieving eggs from the ovaries and fertilizing them with sperm in a laboratory, then transferring one or more embryos into the uterus. IUI involves putting sperm directly into the uterus. Either way, a doctor inserts a small, flexible tube into the vagina to place the sperm or an embryo into the uterus.

Some staunch abortion opponents are against the practice of discarding embryos, a common part of the IVF process. Like most Republicans, Vance has voted against Democratic legislation to protect IVF.

Tim Walz has never directly said he and his wife had their children via IVF, but some of his past statements have implied that was the case.

In February, after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos created through IVF were considered children (meaning people