'MOMS' Group Files Legal Challenge To Reinstate Abortion Regulations

ST. PAUL, MN — A group of Minnesota moms is hoping to reinstate a number of abortion regulations that were vacated by a Ramsey County judge earlier this summer.

Mothers Offering Maternal Support (MOMS) filed a motion to intervene in Doe v. Minnesota on Wednesday "with the aim of reinstating commonsense health and safety protections for Minnesota women and girls who may obtain an abortion."

On July 11, a Ramsey County judge ruled that Minnesota's mandatory 24-hour waiting period before an abortion, and the two-parent notification requirement for girls under the age of 18 before an abortion, violated the state constitution.

Judge Thomas Gilligan — a Mark Dayton appointee — also lifted a state law that said only physicians can perform abortions.

Gilligan's ruling came after three years of litigation between Ellison's office, which was defending the laws, and pro-abortion rights groups that claimed the laws violated Minnesota's constitution.

Later in July, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison made the decision to not appeal the ruling.

"The district court’s decision to strip the state of nearly all power to regulate abortions or create laws that protect young women, our daughters, is astounding," said Renee Carlson, General Counsel of True North Legal, in news conference Wednesday.

"If the attorney general won’t stand up for laws that protect the health and safety of women and young girls, MOMS will."

Barb Waldorf, the daughter-in-law of former Democratic legislator Gene Waldorf, also spoke to the media.

Barb Waldorf, said that at the time the bill was drafted, "supporters of the bill were not trying to put restrictions on abortion; they simply felt that parents had a right and a responsibility to be aware of major medical procedures that their minor children might have."

Waldorf added that "the language of the bill was carefully chosen, because at its core it wasn’t about whether you were pro-life or the pro-choice, it was about protecting the health and safety of young women and girls."

Teresa Collett, the attorney for MOMS, called Ellison's decision not to appeal Judge Gilligan's ruling "is in dereliction of his duty to protect the health and safety of women and young girls."

"In this case, the Attorney General’s experts failed to adequately defend these laws, including by failing to present critical medical research and information in defense of the statutes at issue," Collett added. "Our group is providing the court with critical expert testimony that was not provided by the state."

Ellison said that his office has already spent three years in litigation, 4,000 hours, and $600,000 in defending the abortion restrictions. "Appealing the case is not a proper or prudent use of limited state resources," he said in July.

Additionally, Ellison said that the challenged laws "did not materially impact abortion rates in Minnesota, suggesting they were not achieving the policy goals set by the Legislature."

Abortion restrictions struck down by district court

In his July 11 decision, Judge Gilligan cited Doe. v. Gomez, a 1995 Minnesota Supreme Court ruling that found that the state's constitution guarantees the right of every resident to an abortion up to 20 weeks.

"These abortion laws violate the right to privacy because they infringe upon the fundamental right under the Minnesota Constitution to access abortion care and do not withstand strict scrutiny," Judge Gilligan wrote.

"The parental notification law violates the guarantee of equal protection for the same reasons. The informed consent law also violates the right to free speech under the Minnesota Constitution, because it is misleading and confusing, and does not withstand intermediate scrutiny."

The ruling came just weeks after the United States Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, thus allowing each state the power to regulate abortion on its own.

Of its immediate neighbors, the state of Minnesota has by far the most liberal abortion laws. As a result, the state has become an abortion destination following the Supreme Court's ruling.

Meanwhile, North and South Dakota, Iowa and Wisconsin have laws on the books that ban abortion.