Minnesota abortion opponents rally against political headwinds

Thousands of abortion opponents gathered on the State Capitol steps on the 51st anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision Monday to mark the increase in abortions in the state as Minnesota becomes an island of access in the Midwest.

The mood was somber at the annual March for Life, where organizers placed more than 12,000 fetal models in front of the building to represent the number of abortions in the state in 2022. They then placed the models inside the Capitol rotunda.

“I look out at you, at this crowd of thousands, and I see what that loss of life really means for Minnesota,” said Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, which hosted the rally. “Twelve thousand lives is a lot of lives lost.”

Anti-abortion activists pushed for decades to undo the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that provided constitutional protections for the procedure. But the court’s reversal of Roe in 2022 helped propel Democrats to narrow majorities in the Legislature in the midterm election, which they used to pass historic protections for abortion rights into law last spring.

Abortions in Minnesota increased by 20% in 2022, according to data released by the state Department of Health last June. More than 16% of the 12,175 abortions involved women who traveled from other states where abortion is banned or restricted, doubling the total from the previous year. Before 2022, abortions had been gradually declining in the state since the late 1980s, reaching a low of 9,861 in 2015. Planned Parenthood North Central States, the state’s largest provider, has seen a 25% increase in abortions since Roe was overturned.

“Life as an abortion provider has always looked different depending on where you live, but the contrast has only grown starker,” Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood North Central States, said in a statement on the anniversary of the Roe decision. “Everyone has a right to health care. And your zip code shouldn’t dictate the care you can access.”

At a panel discussion at Planned Parenthood earlier this month, Gov. Tim Walz predicted Minnesota will continue to see a surge in women traveling to the state for abortion access, and he backed the idea of putting an amendment on the ballot to codify abortion rights in the state Constitution. Democrats codified the right to an abortion in state law last session, but a constitutional amendment would go a step further and would be harder for a future Republican-led Legislature to undo.

Last year, Democrats also enacted protections for providers and people traveling into the state seeking abortion access and eliminated a number of laws on the books that were recently struck down by the courts, including an informed consent requirement and 24-hour waiting period.

The legislative action makes Minnesota an outlier in the region. Since Roe’s reversal, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin banned most abortions. Abortion is currently legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks, but the Iowa Supreme Court is expected to rule later this year on a law that would ban most abortions after six weeks.

“We’re holding a lot of gratitude and appreciation for all the progresses we made in the state last year in the Legislature, which we see as resetting the table on abortion,” said Megan Peterson, executive director of Gender Justice, which pushed for a number of the law changes passed in Minnesota last year. She said the changes put abortion back “in the spectrum of care that people need by removing laws that created obstacles and were designed to push abortion out of the regular mainstream health care context.”

Organizers of the March for Life said they expect Democrats to push more abortion rights legislation in 2024, and they raised the alarm about another proposal that would allow physicians to dispense life-ending medication to terminally ill patients with less than six months to live. Democrats in the House are holding their first hearing on the bill Thursday.

“It’s not just for the children; it’s a matter of life for our elderly, those with disabilities, those people that are undervalued,” said Rebecca Souer, who traveled from Barnesville in western Minnesota for the rally. “No, these people are important and they are valuable.”

The 2024 legislative session convenes on Feb. 12.