What Doe v. Gomez means for future of abortion in Minnesota

As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to issue its ruling expected to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision on abortion, Minnesotans will hear a lot about a different court case.

In 1995, the Minnesota Supreme Court went even further than Roe in the case of Doe v. Gomez, issuing a ruling that not only affirmed women's constitutional right to abortion on the state level but also allowed low-income women to use the state's Medical Assistance program to cover the costs of the procedure.

Here's what you need to know about this 27-year-old case and what the Doe v. Gomez ruling means for the future of abortion access in Minnesota.

Jane Doe was a low-income Black mother of two who lived in Hennepin County in the early 1990s and was eligible for federal medical aid. She sought an abortion for a pregnancy resulting from rape but was unable to obtain medical aid coverage because government-funded abortion was barred except in limited circumstances under a 1978 state law. On March 15, 1993, she was able to get an abortion with financial help from Pro-Choice Resources.

Anonymity for women in such cases is common. Norma McCorvey, the original plaintiff in the Roe v. Wade case, was referred to under the pseudonym Jane Roe in court documents.

Several women's health organizations, a physician and Jane Doe filed a lawsuit in Hennepin County District Court arguing that laws restricting the use of public medical aid and general assistance funds for abortion services were unconstitutional.

The lawsuit named the state of Minnesota and Maria Gomez, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Services at the time, along with the commissioners of Hennepin County, Ramsey County and St. Louis County.

At the heart of the argument from women's groups was the fact that Medical Assistance couldn't be used for abortion under most circumstances, yet it could be used for childbirth-related medical services. They argued that funding scheme denied women medical benefits established as a constitutional right in Roe v. Wade simply because the state did not approve. For that reason, state law violated Jane Doe's privacy and equal protection under the law, they argued.

Defendants in the case argued the Minnesota Constitution doesn't require the state to fund the exercise of every fundamental right and that there's a distinction between "a government action that creates an obstacle to abortion and government action that simply fails to remove a pre-existing barrier."

The district court sided with Jane Doe, ruling it was unconstitutional to deny her use of Medical Assistance to get an abortion under the equal protection and privacy clauses. The state immediately appealed the decision and asked for expedited review from the state Supreme Court, which was granted.

In the Dec. 15 ruling, penned by Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Alexander Keith , he wrote that a woman "cannot be coerced into choosing childbirth over abortion by a legislated funding policy."

"In reaching our decision, we have interpreted the Minnesota Constitution to afford broader protection than the United States Constitution of a woman's fundamental right to reach a private decision on whether to obtain an abortion," he added.

The decision was monumental in Minnesota, which hadn't yet made its own ruling on the constitutionality of abortion. Not everyone on the court agreed, with Justice Jeanne Coyne writing in her dissenting opinion that the majority used the "garb of medical necessity and pregnancy by rape and incest" to conclude that women have the right to taxpayer-funded abortions.

That ruling meant the right to abortion would remain protected in the state even if Roe v. Wade were overturned. But it went further than that opinion, allowing abortion coverage for low-income women who receive state assistance.

Such constitutional protections are challenging to reverse, but there is a path. Legislative bans on taxpayer-funding have been proposed by groups who oppose abortion for years and would trigger a challenge to Doe v. Gomez, similar to how Mississippi's abortion law sparked the challenge of Roe. But efforts to pass any abortion-related laws have stalled in Minnesota's divided government, meaning Republicans would need to take full control of the Legislature and governor's office to propose and sign into law a ban on taxpayer-funded abortions.

The Minnesota Supreme Court is currently made up of five justices appointed by Democratic governors and two picked by a Republican. A Republican governor could appoint more conservative members to the court, but that could take many years. A Republican-led Legislature could also propose a constitutional amendment restricting access to abortions, but they'd have to persuade voters to back the ballot initiative.

Building off Doe v. Gomez, nonprofit organization Gender Justice and several other groups filed a lawsuit in district court in 2019 challenging several restrictions to abortion on Minnesota, including a 24-hour waiting period and a requirement to notify the parents for patients under 18. The case was expected to go to trial in June but was delayed.