Three women, two doctors, two pregnancy medical clinics, and a pregnancy help network are suing Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, his attorney general, and Planned Parenthood, alleging the state’s abortion laws violate the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
Women’s Life Care Center, NIFLA, et al. vs. Tim Walz, Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, et al, concerns coerced abortion and due process with regard to termination of parental rights.
Plaintiffs in the case filed in U.S. District Court are Women’s Life Care Center of St. Paul, the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA), Dakota Hope Clinic, with three North Dakota pregnancy help centers, and Drs. David Billings and Dawn Schreifels.
Defendants include Walz, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, and heads of the state’s varying medical governing bodies, along with Red River Women’s Abortion Clinic and its medical director, Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Planned Parenthood North Central States, and the Planned Parenthood affiliates’ medical director.
[Click here to subscribe to Pregnancy Help News!]
The plaintiffs, represented by New Jersey attorney Harold Cassidy, filed the suit in November of last year and are awaiting next steps in the case from the court.
Pregnancy Help News reviewed the legal brief for the case provided by Cassidy, which notes the state’s allowing abortion business, doctors, and others to coerce women into abortions without due process is a violation of the 14th Amendment.
Tweet This: A case before the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota considers whether the state's abortion law violates the 14th Amendment.
The process of abortion in Minnesota, the plaintiffs contend, ends a woman’s role as a parent. They argue that the termination of a mother’s parental role is a matter for the state to determine - not abortion providers.
No court or state official stands between anyone pressuring a pregnant woman to submit to unwanted abortion, they argue.
Walz, who ran for vice president in 2024 with presidential candidate Kamala Harris, signed two bills in 2023 that rescinded Minnesota’s ban on coercing women into having abortions
Earlier that year he signed a bill into law that enshrined abortion until birth in state law overriding any protection by local governments.
Walz additionally signed an executive order in 2022 in response to the Dobbs ruling overturning of Roe v. Wade protecting out of provision of abortion in in Minnesota by out of state residents. He required all state agencies to protect abortion businesses in the state as part of the order and declared that no investigations of these businesses should take place.
A 2023 study by the Charlotte Lozier Institute found that 61% of women with histories of abortion experienced high levels of pressure to have an abortion, whether by their personal circumstances or interpersonal relationships.
Another CLI study shortly thereafter found that 70% of women experiencing abortion say the abortion decision was inconsistent with their own values and preferences, and disturbingly that one in four abortions is unwanted or coerced.
The plaintiffs in the case now before the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota state that “abortion, as practiced under Minnesota law, is not medical treatment. It is 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.”
They also provide testimony from women who had been coerced, pressured, and/or deceived into having abortions at facilities of defendant abortion providers.
The entire abortion industry, and Planned Parenthood in particular, has not taken action to protect pregnant mothers from being coerced or pressured into abortion, the plaintiffs argue, and abortion providers themselves will also pressure or deceive women into abortions.
A hearing in the case was scheduled for June 23 but has now been delayed to July 11. More information is available on a website created for the case, StopCoercedAbortion.com.
