With Harris and Walz, Democrats put abortion rights at the top of the agenda

Months before he was selected as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz toured a Planned Parenthood clinic in his state alongside Harris — the first time a sitting president or vice president had visited an abortion provider.

That visit in March put Minnesota’s efforts to safeguard reproductive rights in the spotlight.

Now, Harris and Walz represent a Democratic ticket that vocally supports access to abortion and fertility treatment, during an election in which those issues are expected to be important to voters and a focus of many Democratic campaigns.

Minnesota was the first state to pass a law protecting abortion rights after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022. The law, which Walz signed in January 2023, stipulates that local governments — cities, counties, towns, etc. — cannot regulate a person’s choice to obtain an abortion or other reproductive services.

A few months later, Walz signed a second abortion-rights law — that statute prohibits the arrest of abortion providers in Minnesota and protects people who travel there to avoid another state’s abortion ban. According to the law, Minnesota officials do not have to turn over a patient’s health records in response to another state’s subpoena or court order.

The share of people who traveled from other states to Minnesota for abortions tripled between 2020 and 2023, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion access.

Abortion-rights advocates pointed to these actions when expressing support for Walz on Tuesday.

“By choosing Gov. Walz as her running mate, Vice President Harris has put forward the most pro-reproductive freedom ticket in history,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president