ST PAUL, Minn. — There’s a new issue ad airing across Twin Cities television stations and some streaming platforms from Minnesota Citizens Concerned For Life on the topic of abortions in Minnesota. A KARE 11 viewer reached out by text message with a question about the ad.
VIEWER QUESTION
Does Minnesota allow abortion up to birth like a new tv ad is saying?
SOURCES
WHAT WE FOUND
As published in Minnesota’s State Statutes, the current law was most recently updated following the passage of the Protect Reproductive Options Act (or PRO Act) in January 2023. It states “every individual has a fundamental right to make autonomous decisions about the individual's own reproductive health,” and specifically states on abortion that “every individual who becomes pregnant has a fundamental right to continue the pregnancy and give birth, or obtain an abortion, and to make autonomous decisions about how to exercise this fundamental right.”
The statute does not include any specific prohibitions on abortions at any stage of pregnancy.
The number of abortions that occur late into a pregnancy is historically rare in Minnesota. The Minnesota Department of Health provides an annual report to the Minnesota Legislature on the number of induced abortions each year. The most recent data from 2022 (annual report, page 14) listed one abortion performed in the third trimester of pregnancy (at 32 weeks), with the majority of abortions occurring in the first trimester (10,979). A similar annual report for 2021 listed one third-trimester abortion involving a Minnesota resident that year, but it was not performed in the state. One third-trimester abortion was also reported in Minnesota in both 2020 and 2019.
Prior to the 2023 PRO Act, abortion was already legal in Minnesota under the Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision, and remained legal in Minnesota following Roe’s reversal as a result of the 1995 Doe v. Gomez Minnesota Supreme Court ruling, which said women had a fundamental right to privacy under the Minnesota Constitution.