Minnesota enshrines abortion as a 'fundamental right' as red states rage against reproductive choice

31 January 2023

For Democrats, one of the big takeaways from the 2022 midterms is that abortion is a winning issue for their party. Democrats aggressively campaigned on abortion rights in statewide gubernatorial and/or U.S. Senate races in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and other key swing states and won. Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer hammered her far-right MAGA Republican challenger Tudor Dixon relentlessly over the abortion issue and was reelected by 11 percent.

Regardless, MAGA Republicans and social conservatives in state legislatures continue to push draconian anti-abortions bills. Democratic state lawmakers, meanwhile, have been moving to codify abortion rights in blue states as well as in swing states. One state where Democrats and their allies have been especially aggressive in fighting for reproductive choice is Minnesota, where Democratic Gov. Tim Walz is expected to sign a new abortion rights bill into law.

The Protect Reproductive Options Act was passed in the Minnesota State Senate on Saturday morning, January 28, declaring abortion a “fundamental right” in that state.

Mother Jones’ Noah Lanard, reporting on January 29, explains, “Abortion is already legal in Minnesota as a result of a 1995 State Supreme Court decision. The bill will not have a major impact on Minnesotans’ current access to abortions, but would make it harder to restrict abortion rights in the future.”

The PRO Act of 2023 passed 34-33 in the Minnesota State Senate along party lines after 15 hours of vigorous debate, and Democrats, according to Minnesota Public Radio, rejected amendments that Republicans were proposing. The bill’s lead author was progressive State Rep. Jen McEwen, a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) who has also been a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. The DFL was formed in 1944 when the Minnesota Democratic Party merged with the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party.

McEwan believes that the PRO Act was badly needed after the U.S. Supreme Court, in June 2022, overturned Roe v. Wade with its 5-4 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Lanard quotes McEwen as saying, “What we saw was a need, after Roe v. Wade was struck down this past summer, to codify the rights we currently have in Minnesota into the statutory law to provide that extra layer of protection…. We have a duty to answer the call of Minnesotans to truly protect those reproductive freedoms, to enshrine them not simply in case law, but in our statutory law. These are our values; this is the practice in Minnesota. This is what we believe.”

Read Mother Jones’ full article at this link.

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