During the Oct. 1 vice presidential debate, Republican vice presidential nominee and Ohio Sen. JD Vance sparred with Democratic vice presidential nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz over Minnesota’s abortion law.

Vance: “As I read the Minnesota law that you signed into law, the statute that you signed into law, it says that a doctor who presides over an abortion where the baby survives, the doctor is under no obligation to provide lifesaving care to a baby who survives a botched late-term abortion.” 

Walz: “It’s not the case. It’s not true. That’s not what the law says.”

Minnesota state law, passed in 1976, stated that a “live child born as a result of an abortion shall be fully recognized as a human person, and accorded immediate protection under the law.” It also required that all “reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice, including the compilation of appropriate medical records, shall be taken to preserve the life and health of the child.”

Minnesota required medical personnel to “preserve the life and health of the born alive infant,” according to The Dispatch Fact Check. A 2015 law, signed by a Democratic governor, strengthened the protections and also defined born alive infant as “every infant member of the species Homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development,” per the outlet.

Walz signed a law in 2023, which –besides ending any restrictions on abortion based on gestational age– dropped the statute requiring medical personnel to “preserve the life and health of the born alive infant.” Instead, it requires medical personnel to “care for the infant who is born alive.”

Democratic-Farmer-Labor Minnesota State Rep. Tina Liebling, a co-author of the law, testified on the state House floor that it was “comfort language,” according to Minnesota Public Radio.  (RELATED: Did JD Vance Follow Trump Would-Be Assassin On Social Media?)

“If you give birth pre-term or to an infant that has some kind of devastating defect, instead of that infant being ripped out of your arms because politicians have decided that that is what should happen and there should be significant interventions…it should be between the parents and the doctor. People in these tragic situations deserve that privacy,” Liebling said.

The Dispatch further reported, “While Walz did help remove specific protections for born-alive infants in Minnesota state law, infants born during failed abortions are still explicitly protected under federal law by the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002, which amended U.S. code to include born-alive infants in definitions of ‘person,’ ‘human being,’ ‘child,’ and “individual.’”