MINNEAPOLIS (LifeSiteNews) – The first hearing took place Friday in a lawsuit challenging Minnesota abortion laws not only on the grounds that they violate the equal-protection rights of preborn babies but on the novel legal argument that they impermissibly empower private entities to irrevocably terminate the relationship between mother and child.
The complaint, originally filed in November by National Institute of Family & Life Advocates and Women’s Life Care Center and available at StopCoercedAbortions.com, argues that Minnesota abortion laws “have as their purpose the irreparable termination of the pregnant mother’s constitutionally protected relationship with her child by terminating the life of her child without providing any due process protections or the equal protection of the law in violation of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”
The argument that the 14th Amendment requires equal protection of preborn babies’ right to life is broadly recognized (if not universally adopted), but it is the other aspect of the argument that makes the case “groundbreaking,” in the website’s words.
“It has traditionally been the exclusive function of the state to terminate a pregnant mother’s parental relationship with her child in both the context of ‘involuntary’ terminations and ‘voluntary’ terminations,” the complaint argues. “‘Involuntary’ termination of a mother’s rights is subject to the strict requirements of the 14th Amendment Due Process Clause which permits such involuntary termination only by a court order following a hearing, which provides extensive due process protections, including that the grounds for termination – the mother’s “unfitness” – must be proven by clear and convincing evidence. The central purpose of such an involuntary termination is to advance the best interests of the child.”
Yet legal abortion-on-demand “delegates the state function of terminating a pregnant mother’s rights and interests in her relationship with her child to” Planned Parenthood, its affiliates, and other abortion businesses, and does so without safeguards present in other such “terminations,” such as adoption, to ensure the mother’s decision is “truly voluntary.”
In abortion, it continues, “(t]hat termination is often involuntary, resulting from coercion or pressure from others placed upon the pregnant mothers who want to keep their children. Most waivers of the mother’s rights and consents to abortions are uninformed. That collaborative effort and partnership between the state officials and the private state actor abortion businesses accomplishes the termination by killing the mother’s child in utero.”
“Minnesota and its officials repealed the few inadequate protections for the mothers’ rights which previously existed under Minnesota’s statutes, including the statute making it illegal to perform an involuntary abortion,” it adds, further noting that a successful abortion cannot be undone in the way wrongful custody rulings or regretted parental-rights waivers can.
“Although they’re obligated to provide protections of a mother’s rights, to ensure it’s voluntary, to ensure that it’s informed, they don’t,” attorney Harold Cassidy said at a press conference following the hearing. “Planned Parenthood as an example, they’re operating under the authority and power given to them specifically by the law, and they’re aided by state officials.”
InForum reports that Illyana Green, representing Red River Women’s Clinic (one of the abortion facilities named in the suit), challenged the premise of the lawsuit, arguing that “this is not a case where the state mandates or encourages certain actions,” and that the plaintiffs were wrongly “equating abortion to terminating parental rights.”
Attorneys for the defendants (which also include Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, Department of Human Services Commissioner Jodi Harpstead, and more) sought a complete dismissal of the complaint. The judge did not rule in either direction by the hearing’s end.
Minnesota currently has no meaningful limits on abortion, with the state constitution containing a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom” and the state barring localities from adding their own restrictions. In 2023 it repealed a mandatory 24-hour waiting period, informed consent requirements, and other abortion limits and regulations, even requirements to record and care for infants born alive after botched abortions. Walz’s tenure as governor has seen a 16% rise in Minnesota abortions.
