Minnesota Senate Passes Two Bills That Threaten Women’s Health and Safety

Today, the Minnesota Senate passed two bills that place severe restrictions on access to health care for Minnesota women.

The first bill (H.F. 936) bans abortion after 20 weeks 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. “Politicians don’t need to make this difficult decision harder for any woman, especially not for women struggling to make ends meet from one paycheck to the next, those already facing the greatest challenges,” 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.