Democrats in the Minnesota House approved a bill Thursday guaranteeing state residents the right to an abortion and other reproductive health care.
The bill passed with a 69-65 vote after about four hours of debate. A companion bill could be voted on as early as next week in the Minnesota Senate.
Abortion is already protected by a 1995 Minnesota Supreme Court decision, Doe v. Gomez. Advocates for legal abortions say that is not enough because the make up of the state’s top court could change, as it did with the U.S. Supreme Court, which last year issued the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, a nearly 50-year decision Constitutionally protecting the right to abortion nationwide.
“No one is pro-abortion,” Rep. Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn, DFL- Eden Prairie, the bill’s chief sponsor said shortly before the House began debate Thursday. “Abortion bans do not end abortions. They only end safe abortions.”
Wait, ya mean government banning something does not prevent that thing? It's a shame progs don't use that same logic regarding their approach to guns. But I digress.
Given that Republicans are in the minority, the best they could do was try to mitigate whatever extreme measures the Dems looked to pass.
GOP lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to amend the bill to regulate third-trimester abortions and to require facilities that perform the procedure to be licensed.
House Minority Leader Rep. Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said Republicans “offered reasonable, common sense amendments, but they were rejected.”
Democrats have responded that late-term abortions are extraordinarily rare and should be a decision a patient makes with their doctor.
Of the 10,000 abortions performed in Minnesota in 2021, there was just one past the 25 week of pregnancy, according the state Department of Health abortion report.
So then if late-term abortions are so rare, then what's the issue with banning them? Whenever pro life people indicate they oppose abortion even in cases of rape or incest, their arguments of such pregnancies being statistically irrelevant are immediately shouted down. However, progs have no issue with the "very rare" talking point to defend their own extremism.
It appears as though a companion bill will be voted on in the Senate within the next week or two. Given the DFL has a scant 34-33 majority, it will require literally only one Democrat to vote "No" to abort (heh - see what I did there?) this awful legislation. Here's hoping there's one pro choice Dem who isn't completely ghoulish on this issue. I'd like to think that's not too high a bar.
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