Bills Target Women's Health

The Minnesota House dealt a double blow to women’s health today by passing two bills that place severe restrictions on access to abortion. Companion bills await a vote in the Senate, where they have cleared key committees.

The first bill (H.F. 936) bans abortion after 20 weeks gestation and criminalizes doctors who provide them. The second bill (H.F. 201) prohibits low-income women from receiving assistance for abortion through their state-funded health-care programs.

“People have decidedly different and complex views about abortion,” said Sarah Stoesz, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota. “But most Minnesotans agree that politicians should not interfere with personal medical decisions best left to women and their families.”

The ban on abortion after 20 weeks came in spite of compelling testimony from doctors, experts on constitutional law and others, including a woman who stepped forward to tell of her own anguishing decision to terminate a much-wanted pregnancy based on devastating news of fetal anomalies incompatible with life.

The ban on assistance for low-income women contradicts a 1995 Minnesota Supreme Court decision in Doe v. Gomez that ruled that a woman should have access to the full range of health care services, regardless of her financial circumstances. “If a woman is struggling to make ends meet or put food on the table, she should have access to safe, legal services, no matter where her insurance comes from,” said Stoesz.

The multiple attacks on reproductive health contradict newly elected legislators’ promises to focus on the state budget crisis and the economy.

“Minnesotans expect their elected officials get the job done on the budget. Instead, they are putting women’s health and safety at risk by promoting an ideologically driven agenda,” said Stoesz.