Summary

The Minnesota Supreme Court recognized that multiple provisions in the Minnesota Constitution protect abortion as a privacy right more broadly and strongly than the U.S. Constitution. The Court applied this right to hold that the state’s medical assistance program must fund abortion to make it accessible for low-income people.

Specifically:

• The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that privacy rights – not just equal protection – require the state to fund abortion.
• The Minnesota Supreme Court explicitly rejected the U.S. Supreme Court’s reasoning in Harris v. McRae, which held that the federal constitution does not require states to fund abortion on the same terms as other pregnancy care. The Minnesota high court recognized that “McRae has the practical effect of not protecting a woman’s fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and allowing funding decisions to accomplish its nullification of that right.”

Background

Background

Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, the Minnesota Commissioner of Public Welfare issued a policy bulletin announcing that Medical Assistance (“MA”), the state’s publicly funded health care program, would cover the cost of abortions if performed by a licensed provider. A few years later, however, the state Supreme Court invalidated this bulletin for violating rulemaking provisions and the state adopted prohibitions on abortion funding.

By the early 1990s, MA would cover abortion only to save the life of the pregnant person, or if the pregnancy was the result of criminal sexual conduct or incest that was reported to law enforcement, even while it covered a wide range of other pregnancy-related services. The impact was drastic. In 1977, prior to these restrictions, the state funded abortions in 1,942 cases. By 1993, the number had dwindled to two.

About the case and rulings

About the case and rulings

The Center challenged these restrictions in Women of Minnesota v. Gomez in 1995. Plaintiffs in the case included providers, clinics, advocacy organizations, and Jane Doe, an individual who had become pregnant through sexual assault that she could not report to law enforcement. The Center asked the Court to hold that – contrary to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Harris v. McRae – a policy denying funding for abortion to indigent women infringed on the fundamental right to decide whether to continue a pregnancy.

The Court ruled in the Plaintiffs’ favor, holding that because the restrictions impacted only those pregnant recipients of MA seeking an abortion for therapeutic reasons, and not those choosing to carry a pregnancy to term, they violated the right of privacy rooted in several provisions of the Minnesota Constitution. The Court observed that it could “think of few decisions more intimate, personal, and profound than a woman’s decision between childbirth and abortion,” and clarified that “the right of privacy under our constitution protects not simply the right to an abortion, but rather it protects the woman’s decision to abort.”

The Minnesota Supreme Court explicitly interpreted the state constitution to provide more protection than the federal constitution, grounding its reasoning in what it viewed as the state’s unique circumstances and precedents that include “a long tradition of affording persons on the periphery of society a greater measure of government protection and support than may be available elsewhere.” It furthermore rejected the U.S. Supreme Court’s reasoning in Harris v. McRae, recognizing that “McRae has the practical effect of not protecting a woman’s fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and allowing funding decisions to accomplish its nullification of that right.”

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