Several pro-life groups in Minnesota have filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming that its pro-abortion law is unconstitutional.
The plaintiffs include Women’s Life Care Center, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, Dakota Hope Clinic, David Billings, MD, Dawn Schreifels, MD, and three mothers. According to Minnesota Public Radio, the three mothers are women who have had abortions and they say were not voluntary. The lawsuit states they “were all subjected to the termination of their parental rights and relationships with their children by involuntary and unwanted abortions.”
They are suing Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Governor Tim Walz, Minnesota Department of Human Services Commissioner Jodi Harpstead, Planned Parenthood Minnesota, and several other organizations, on the basis that the state’s current abortion laws “have the irreparable termination of the pregnant mother’s relationship with her child by terminating the life of her child without providing any due process protections or the equal protection of the law.”
They argue that this termination violates the 14th amendment’s due process clause. They also say that the state’s law means that women do not receive informed consent before abortion.
The lawsuit further argues that abortion is not a 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.” Because of this, they say the pro-abortion laws violate mothers’ rights to “maintain their constitutionally protected relationship with their children, their right to procreate, their interests in their children’s lives and welfare and their right to the equal protection.”
Plaintiffs argue that many abortions are “involuntary, resulting from coercion or pressure from others placed upon the pregnant mothers who want to keep their children,” and that “most waivers of the mother’s rights and consents to abortions are uninformed.”
“The plaintiffs in this case are not taking the position that all abortions are unconstitutional. Their position is that all involuntary abortions are unconstitutional. All abortions that are the product of coercion and pressure and deception are unconstitutional,” explained Harold Cassidy, attorney for the plaintiffs.
Minnesota Attorney General Ellison commented Monday that the state would be responding to the lawsuit, but he doesn’t think it is “very meritorious.”
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