Democratic men are speaking out, embracing new role as reproductive rights advocates

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On Wednesday night, Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz spoke with emotion about his personal experience with "the hell that is infertility" — becoming perhaps the first American male politician to do so in such a prominent way.

"I remember praying each night for a phone call," said Walz, the governor of Minnesota. "The pit in your stomach when the phone would ring and the absolute agony when the treatments hadn't worked. It took Gwen and I years, but we had access to fertility treatments, and when our daughter was born, we named her Hope."

For years, the slogan most often heard from Democrats protesting in favor of abortion rights was one that defiantly rejected men's role in deciding the issue: “My body, my choice.” And for many decades, it was extremely rare for men to speak publicly about how abortion and reproductive rights affected them.

This year's Democratic National Convention, however, has marked a significant departure from that approach.

"You have this football coach — a serious piece of male iconography in this country — talking about the importance and the emotional toll that infertility can take on you as a man," Sean Tipton, chief policy and advocacy director at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, told the American-Statesman. "Having somebody at the pinnacle of American politics with a history of being a soldier, a football player, a coach, talking about that is very, very powerful and very important."

In bringing men's experiences to the surface, Democrats are capitalizing on what they see as a winning political issue while contributing to a larger shift that makes more visible men's roles and stakes in the reproductive health process — one that has increased in momentum since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 reversed Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion established 49 years earlier.

That strategy, and its reasoning, was crystallized in comments made by Austin resident Josh Zurawski on the first night of the convention, as he stood before thousands in Chicago and millions on television to tell a personal story about how his wife, Amanda, nearly died from sepsis after she was denied an abortion in Texas to treat a premature water break.

"I'm here tonight because the fight for reproductive rights isn't just a woman's fight," he said to roaring applause. "This is about fighting for our families, and as Kamala Harris says, our future."

More: Texas GOP committee considers IVF restrictions at convention: 'Maybe a later fight'

DNC speeches continue trend

The comments from Walz and Zurawski add to a litany of men who have come forward with personal experiences relating to reproductive health since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade.

In 1973, the poster child of the abortion rights movement was Jane Roe (aka Norma McCorvey), a single mother and the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade. The decision in that case established the right to terminate a pregnancy before fetal viability.

This year, the plaintiffs in major lawsuits over abortion are largely married women who suffered complicated pregnancies — and in speaking engagements and court hearings, their husbands are often there, supporting them silently or in speech. 

Kate Cox, a Dallas-area mom of two, made national news in December after the Texas Supreme Court ruled that state law did not permit her to terminate a nonviable pregnancy, finding that her doctor did not assert with “reasonable medical judgment” that she had a “life-threatening condition.” Her doctor had said her fertility was at risk. She and her husband, Justin, were joint plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the state of Texas and appeared side-by-side before a Travis County judge.

Ryan Hamilton, who lives outside of Granbury in North Texas, has given interviews to The Dallas Morning News, "Good Morning America" and other outlets about his wife's medical crisis during miscarriage.

As per medical records provided to The Dallas Morning News, Hamilton’s wife experienced severe hemorrhaging after she was given misoprostol, but not offered a surgical evacuation of the uterus or mifepristone, after experiencing an incomplete miscarriage in May. After days of near-constant bleeding, she passed out on her bathroom floor, surrounded by her own blood and feces. Misoprostol and mifepristone, strictly regulated for their abortifacient potential in Texas, help facilitate the passage of miscarriages. 

More: Texas abortion laws are preventing women from accessing crucial miscarriage care

An awakening

It’s not new for men to speak about abortion policy. Democratic politicians have run on a platform of reproductive rights for years, affirming support for the procedure even if they do not share their experiences with it.

And for decades, both male and female conservative politicians have been prominent voices in support of restrictions on the procedure, contending that fetuses have a "right to life" in most circumstances. Several influential anti-abortion groups have men at their helms.

What seems new is the increased involvement in everyday conversations about abortion, and men's increased willingness to discuss the subject with acquaintances, said Dr. Brian Nguyen, a University of Southern California professor who studies male engagement in reproductive rights and gender equity issues and who runs the Expanding Male Engagement in Reproductive and Gender Equity Lab.

“It's not as if these cases weren't around previously; restrictions on abortion have been around for decades,” Nguyen told the American-Statesman earlier this year. “What we're seeing here is just this cultural shift to men talking about how abortion and the lack of abortion impacts their situation. ... That is going to lead to change.”

Travis Edwards, an Austin resident who grew up in New Orleans, is one man who has been a part of that shift. He has considered himself in favor of abortion rights since he was in high school, when he learned about a family member who terminated a pregnancy. But he largely avoided speaking about it with others, and he didn't think that Texas' abortion laws would affect him and his wife, Taylor. They wanted a baby, after all.

Then, the couple learned the child they desperately wanted had a fatal diagnosis — and that the pregnancy posed serious risks to Taylor’s fertility. They left the state to seek an abortion in 2023.

More: 'Emotional torture': Austin woman's story of a doomed pregnancy amid abortion ban

Now, Edwards often speaks alongside his wife at public events and to reporters. In an interview with the American-Statesman earlier this year, Edwards said that speaking up has opened his eyes to the ways men fail to understand reproductive issues.

“There's a lot of men out there who consider themselves to be pro-abortion, but when it comes to it, they just don't think about it that much, they don't really think it affects them," Travis Edwards told the Statesman. "And so, men, if we're going to be having a stronger voice in the conversation, we need to make it a more important topic and realize that it's going to affect people close to you, it could affect your family.”

Taylor, for her part, supports her husband's decision to speak about their experience.

Abortion "is not talked about enough from the man's point of view," she said. "Travis telling our story from his perspective shines a light on how other men would perceive themselves in that situation ... I think it's really, really important that men bring up this issue more."

The shift hasn't come without resistance, however. Hamilton said he has been on the receiving end of hateful comments for speaking about his wife's experience.

"There's been some backlash for the fact that I'm a man, which is just insane to me,” Hamilton said at an event hosted by Democratic advocacy group Texas Blue Action in July. “Isn't this the way that it should be, men standing up for the women that they love? Why are we asking the women to go out and relive these horrific experiences, unless they want to?”

Hamilton told the Statesman in a phone interview that his wife supported his decision to share what happened, but that “she doesn’t want to talk about this sort of thing in public” herself.

“The question shouldn't be, ‘Why am I getting the attention?’” Hamilton said at the Texas Blue Action event. “The question should be, ‘Where are all the other men?’”

At the Texas Blue Action event where Hamilton spoke, state Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, also encouraged men to speak up. 

"There are women in everyone's lives. We love them. They are our wives, they are our sisters, they are our mothers, they are our friends, they are people," Johnson said. "And there are other rights that will fall. Get the men involved in this, don't give them a pass."

Tipton is hoping that the increased involvement of men will have a political effect.

"As somebody who has been working in this space for over 20 years, I've never seen anything like this — the attention that reproductive medicine in general, and infertility care specifically, is getting in the popular spotlight and in the political world," Tipton told the Statesman. "I sincerely hope, and we are working very hard to make sure, that all that interest and all that visibility translates into more people being able to get the care that they need."