Planned Parenthood again increases tax-funded abortions to new record high in Minnesota

ST. PAUL — Planned Parenthood peformed 23 percent more tax-funded abortions in Minnesota in 2020, according to a report just released by the Minnesota Department of Human Services. Overall, taxpayers reimbursed abortion practitioners just over $1 million for 4,410 abortions during the 2020 pandemic year.

“The pattern is clear: Planned Parenthood does more abortions year after year after year,” says MCCL Executive Director Scott Fischbach. “The group exploits the availability of taxpayer Medicaid dollars to push its numbers and revenue up. The result is that more unborn children die and more low-income women are left without the real solutions they need. And taxpayers are forced to fund all of it.”

The 2020 tax-funded abortion total was a marginal drop from 2019, when taxpayers funded 4,463 abortions, but still represents the second-highest figure ever and a 30 percent rise since 2013. Planned Parenthood, however, saw a large increase in 2020. It was reimbursed a record-high $730,559 for a record-high 3,422 abortions. The group has increased its tax-funded abortion total for nine consecutive years—a 296 percent jump since 2011.

Minnesota law prohibited public funding of elective abortions until a 1995 Minnesota Supreme Court decision, Doe v. Gomez, required such funding through Minnesota’s Medicaid program. Since then, taxpayers have bankrolled close to 100,000 abortions at a cost of about $29 million. A large body of research, including a literature review by the abortion-industry-aligned Guttmacher Institute, shows that public funding of abortion leads to significantly more overall abortions than would otherwise take place.

“Doe v. Gomez didn’t just impose abortion funding in Minnesota,” says Fischbach. “It also claimed that the state Constitution requires abortion-on-demand, a ruling that would remain in force even if the U.S. Supreme Court soon overturns Roe v. Wade. For the sake of women, children, and taxpayers, it’s long past time for this erroneous and disastrous decision to be overturned.”

MCCL has frequently backed legislation to stop taxpayer funding of abortion in Minnesota. Such legislation passed through the Legislature in 2011 and 2017, but then-Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed both bills.

Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life is Minnesota's largest pro-life organization. MCCL works through education, legislation, and political action to secure protection for innocent human life from conception until natural death. Learn more at mccl.org.