Pregnancy centers sue Minnesota clinics, politicians over abortion laws

(FOX 9) – Several pregnancy health centers, doctors and mothers-to-be have come together to challenge Minnesota Abortion Lawsarguing that it violates the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

What we know

Filed Nov. 22, plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Women’s Life Care Center, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, and Dakota Hope Clinic, as well as David Billings, MD (on behalf of himself and his patients) and Dawn Schreifels, MD, and three mothers .

Together, the group is suing Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellisongovernor Tim WalzMinnesota Department of Human Services Commissioner Jodi Harpstead, Planned Parenthood Minnesota and several other organizations.

The lawsuit brings a constitutional challenge to Minnesota’s abortion laws, which it claims “irreparably terminate the relationship of the expectant mother to her child by terminating her child’s life without affording any due process protection or equal protection of the law.” which he claims violates the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Argument outline

Essentially, the lawsuit claims that an abortion in Minnesota is not medical treatment, but instead “the employment of a medical procedure to achieve a non-medical objective: the termination of a pregnant mother’s constitutionally protected relationship with her child.”

A termination of pregnancy is accomplished only by the intentional termination of a child’s life, the lawsuit alleges.

Elaborating further on its position, the lawsuit claims that medical treatment necessary to treat conditions that may have the unintended or unavoidable consequence of the death of a child is not an abortion and could be classified as “true medical care.” However, an abortion has the sole purpose of killing the mother’s child as a method of ending her parental relationship with her child.

Thus, Minnesota’s abortion laws violate the right of expectant mothers to “maintain their constitutionally protected relationship with their children, their right to procreate, their interests in the life and welfare of their children, and their right to equal protection,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit, in turn, alleges that the intentional killing of an unborn child at any age after conception is a crime punishable by mandatory life imprisonment in Minnesota.

Minnesota Protection

In 2023, Governor Walz signed legislation guaranteeing access to abortion under Minnesota lawwhich at the time placed Minnesota among the first states to implement abortion protections since then The US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

The legislation created a “fundamental right” to abortion, making it harder for a court to strike down Minnesota’s existing abortion protections, which stem from a 1995 state Supreme Court decision in Doe v. Gómez.

“Uninformed Consent”

The suit alleges that Minnesota statutes have an “implemented, administered and enforced legal and regulatory scheme” that delegates the termination of a pregnant mother’s rights and interests to several “abortion businesses” listed as defendants — all of which have “interests in direct conflict with those of the pregnant mother and the child she wants”.

The partnership between state officials and private abortion businesses accomplishes the termination by killing the mother’s child, the lawsuit says.

Termination of pregnancy is often “involuntary, resulting from coercion or pressure from others on expectant mothers who wish to keep their children,” the lawsuit states, also claiming that, “most waivers of the mother’s rights and consent to abortion . they are uninformed.”

Finally, Minnesota laws and regulations extend immunity from prosecution to doctors, facilities, and employees who perform abortions, as well as public officials who “cooperate and cooperate with abortion providers, whether or not the abortion that kills the mother’s child is voluntary , knowing and informed. .”

What’s next?

The suit ultimately requests a jury trial to seek as yet unspecified compensatory damages and punitive money damages claims from the listed defendants.