Lawsuit challenges Minnesota abortion access in federal court
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Through prior court rulings and legislative actions, Minnesota has among the most accommodating laws granting access to abortion. A lawsuit filed late last week in federal court seeks to upend those laws.
It was brought by a group of plaintiffs that includes women who have had abortions they say weren’t voluntary, anti-abortion organizations and “crisis pregnancy centers,” which counsel clients against having abortions. They argue that Minnesota’s process for abortion consent is too loose and that its legal protections for medical providers are too lenient.
The lawsuit names Women’s Life Care Center, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, Dakota Hope Clinic, two doctors and three mothers as plaintiffs. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Gov. Tim Walz, Department of Human Services Commissioner Jodi Harpstead and Planned Parenthood are included in the list of defendants.
The lawsuit alleges three women “were all subjected to the termination of their parental rights and relationships with their children by involuntary and unwanted abortions.” The lawsuit also argues that “abortion, as practiced under Minnesota law, is not medical treatment.”
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Minnesota Sen. Lindsey Port, DFL-Burnsville, co-authored the bill that enshrined abortion rights in Minnesota law. She told MPR News that she’s keeping an eye on the case, but isn’t overly concerned.
“It’s going to be a difficult several years and we are expecting a big fight on this issue,” Port said. “We stand very firmly in the place that Minnesotans deserve to make health care decisions with their doctors, without legislators standing in the way of that.”
Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said the Senate DFL caucus has been steadfast in their support for reproductive freedom.
“We will take that issue up when we come back into session,” Murphy said.
Jill Hasday, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Minnesota Law School, said the plaintiffs want abortion to be treated as a termination of parental rights, rather than a medical procedure, and therefore subject to the same rules and regulations.
“The plaintiffs in the suit want to argue that the same constitutional requirements have to apply to abortion and that Minnesota’s laws legalizing abortion are unconstitutional because they permit the termination of parental rights before a child is born, without a court hearing, and without a court finding clear and convincing evidence of abuse and neglect.”
The lawsuit seeks an injunction barring most surgical and medical abortions until the state’s laws are changed.
Hasday said it is “extremely unlikely to prevail.”
“To me, I see it as more a sign of what's coming,” she said. “In the years to come, we’re going to see many different attempts to find a court that’s willing to say that abortion legalization violates the U.S. Constitution.”