Abortion bookends MN legislative session as new laws pass on last day

ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - Abortion laws will be the bookends of the 2023 Minnesota legislative session.

The year started with a fundamental right to abortions passing in January.

Now at the end of session, Democrats are fine-tuning abortion law as part of one of the last bills they’ll pass.

The Supreme Court reversed almost 50 years of abortion rights from Roe v Wade in June 2022.

Five months later, Democrats swept into a trifecta of power in Minnesota.

"They knew after the election in 2022 that they had a mandate to put abortion rights into state law," said Mitchell Hamline School of Law Professor Laura Hermer.

Early session bills made Minnesota abortion rights clear and shielded women who came from other states for abortions.

On the last day of session, Democrats also erasied the mandatory 24-hour waiting period, which a Ramsey County judge already struck down last summer.

The health and human services bill also eliminates some data collection, but keeps clinics reporting some basic patient information.

And the bill repeals language forcing doctors to take measures to save the life of a child born alive during an abortion, leaving only what Rep. Tina Liebling called "comfort language."

"We don't need in law to say that you don't kill an infant that's alive," said Rep. Tina Liebling, DFL-Rochester.

Republicans bristled at most of the changes, but especially cutting grant funding to crisis pregnancy centers that encourage or counsel women not to have abortions.

Sen. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, argued the GOP left Planned Parenthood alone when they were the majority.

And he criticized Democrats for cutting crisis pregnancy centers as part of an 845-page bill brought to the Senate floor less than 11 hours after its completion.

"Because you have all the votes and you get to throw this in in the dark," Abeler said. "Try to run this through the Senate in the daylight and I promise you it will be well debated and it might not even pass because we recognize the value."

The bill passed the House in the evening Monday after the Senate approved it in the afternoon, so it’s headed to the governor now.