The news on abortion rights and access has been nothing short of heartbreaking. If you’ve been aching for a win, we couldn’t be more excited to share this news: there was a huge victory for abortion rights in Minnesota yesterday!
In Doe v. Minnesota, a District Court has permanently blocked numerous abortion restrictions and reaffirmed state constitutional protections for abortion. “The right to choose to have an abortion would be meaningless without the right to access abortion care,” said Judge Thomas Gilligan in his ruling.
This victory wouldn’t be possible without the tireless advocacy and litigation efforts of our partners Our Justice, The Lawyering Project, Gender Justice, and UnRestrict Minnesota.
The restrictions that were blocked include:
- banning qualified advance-practice clinicians from providing abortion care;
- forcing patients to delay their abortion care by at least 24 hours after a consultation;
- minors having to notify both parents before they can receive abortion care;
- forcing abortion providers to give irrelevant and misleading information to their patients;
- banning second-trimester abortion care outside of hospitals; and
- regulations that subject abortion providers to felony criminal penalties for minor regulatory infractions.
The ruling comes just 18 days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Ten states have already banned abortion entirely, and the public health crisis is only going to compound as more states ban and restrict care. Minnesota will stand as one of the only safe havens in the Midwest and this win further protects and expands abortion access in the state.
Whole Woman’s Health of Minnesota is already welcoming patients from Wisconsin, Iowa, Texas, Alabama, Ohio, and other states where laws are very restrictive. The removal of these harmful restrictions will help us continue to prepare our clinic for the surge in demand, as well as ensuring abortion remains accessible to locals.
We are doing everything we can to help as many people as possible, but we need your help. Our nonprofit clinic is facing a physician shortage and this ruling enables us to hire advance-practice clinicians to provide abortion care.
