U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel on Wednesday dismissed a challenge to Minnesota abortion laws that claimed abortion infringes upon parental rights.
The lawsuit, first brought forward in November 2024 by several plaintiffs, including the Women’s Life Care Center and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, argued that “unwanted” and “involuntary” abortions take away parental rights and violate the 14th Amendment. Brasel heard a motion from the state to dismiss the lawsuit on July 11.
As Brasel put it, plaintiffs were seeking to institute procedures where an abortion decision receives the same court review as a termination of parental rights under Minnesota’s child protection statutes.
In her judgment dismissing the case, Brasel said the plaintiffs are arguing for a right between a “pregnant mother and an unborn child” that has not been recognized under the Constitution.
“The intellectually honest approach in this case would be for Plaintiffs to acknowledge that they are seeking to establish a new fundamental right under the Fourteenth Amendment’s substantive due process clause,” she wrote. “Plaintiffs are perfectly entitled to try and establish such a right. But they have continued to argue that such a right already exists in case law, which is simply not true.”
Brasel also said plaintiffs failed to properly identify which Minnesota laws related to abortion are being challenged in the suit.
“Plaintiffs repeatedly invoke the phrase ‘Minnesota’s abortion laws’ as the focus of their lawsuit. But they get no more specific than that … One possible target could be the series of post‐Dobbs laws passed by the Minnesota Legislature, including the PRO Act. But Plaintiffs disclaim that they challenge those laws. … There is still no statute, regulation, or case that Plaintiffs identify. The core of their challenge is to the legal regime of abortion in Minnesota, writ large.”
Minnesota has several legal protections for abortion dating back to 1995, when the Minnesota Supreme Court decided in Doe v. Gomez that the Minnesota Constitution guarantees the right to an abortion. The Minnesota Legislature also passed the “Pro Act” in 2023, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning Roe. v. Wade, which had established the constitutional right to abortion. The act codified in state statute the right to make decisions about reproductive health.
Attorney General Keith Ellison said on Wednesday that anti-abortion groups are looking for “every possible gap in the armor protecting abortion access in our state.”
“This latest attack on abortion access in Minnesota is a reminder that anti-choice interest groups are constantly seeking new ways to ban abortion or make reproductive health care services harder to obtain,” he said. “For decades, those anti-choice interest groups worked to erode the abortion protections provided by Roe v. Wade until they finally found a way to eliminate those protections entirely. Now, they are trying the exact same thing at the state level.”
Harold Cassidy, attorney for the plaintiffs, said Wednesday that he plans to appeal the ruling. He said the “errors” of the District Court are clear and that he is confident his appeal will prevail.
“In the end, the rights of the mothers in Minnesota will be protected,” he told Forum News Service. “The way they’re abused under Minnesota law must be brought to an end. There is coercion that must stop. The abuse of women must stop. Men forcing women to have abortions against their will must stop.”
“And the law of Minnesota not only … makes it possible, the way that the state constitution has been interpreted, makes it mandatory,” he added.
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