It is a fact that under the governorship of Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, Minnesota removed a requirement that babies that survived abortions be given life-saving care. However, PolitiFact still slapped a “false” label on the claim on Wednesday.

The unfortunate victim of PolitiFact’s censorship was Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who sought to debunk ABC debate moderator Linsey Davis on Facebook, “In three more states children born alive after an abortion had legal rights that governors—like Tim Walz—repealed. Medical personnel have testified of babies being left to die or gruesomely killed after being born alive following a failed abortion.”

Sara Swann notes that prior to 2023, Minnesota law required, “All reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice, including the compilation of appropriate medical records, shall be taken by the responsible medical personnel to preserve the life and health of the born alive infant."

The new language “was updated to instead say medical personnel must care for the infant who is born alive.’"

The absence of “preserve the life” should affirm Perkins’s claim, but Swann tries to avoid that conclusion by arguing, “The law’s updated version, however, kept the provision that said, ‘An infant who is born alive shall be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law.’"

That doesn’t disprove anything. It allows for doctors to claim comfort care is the same as life-saving care because they assume the baby will die anyway.

Swann then introduced readers to law professor Laura Hermer, who claimed the repealed law “made it sound as if multiple infants were being born alive following attempted abortions."

Hermer is also quoted as saying, “Post-viability abortions are very uncommon in Minnesota, as elsewhere, though they do occasionally occur. Abortions resulting in live births, while hypothetically possible, are vanishingly rare."

Swann notes that Hermer’s source is the Minnesota Department of Health, but the law repealed reporting requirements for such births. Additionally, the old law had a clear definition of what it meant to be born alive, whereas the new one does not.

Additionally, Swann cites State Sen. Erin Maye Quade, who claimed critics are falsely describing some scenarios, such as when babies are born with lethal fetal anomalies, as failed abortions, “In those circumstances, the children, the babies that are born are meant to be alive because their parents want to hold them before they die. That is not a failed abortion. Childbirth was the method of abortion in that circumstance."

Swann then summarizes, “This update to the law means infants who are ‘born alive’ receive appropriate medical care dependent on the pregnancy’s circumstances, Maye Quade said.”

Maye Quade basically admits it: the law did remove the requirement that babies be given life-saving care, she just thinks that’s a good thing because some of them had no hope anyway. Pro-lifers, who are familiar with miracle stories, reject such notions. That aside, partnering with Facebook to censor such claims against Walz is problematic because another Facebook fact-checking partner, The Dispatch, wrote, in another fact-check, “In 2023, Walz signed legislation that repealed most of a statute designed to protect infants born alive after an abortion attempt.”

Will linking to one Facebook fact-checking partner result in you getting censored by a second? Maybe that highlights the problem with the idea that some people should have the power to censor others.