The Doe v. Gomez decision has led to abortion extremism in Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS — Today marks the anniversary of the Doe v. Gomez Minnesota Supreme Court decision that requires a policy of abortion-on-demand and taxpayer funding of abortion. It has now led to the elimination of most of Minnesota’s longstanding abortion-related laws, including informed consent and parental notification requirements.

“The Doe v. Gomez ruling got the Minnesota Constitution wrong and imposed abortion extremism in Minnesota,” says MCCL Executive Director Scott Fischbach. “Abortion is legal for any reason, and it’s often bankrolled by taxpayers. And now parents need not even be notified before an abortion is performed on their minor daughter.”

Minnesota law previously prohibited Medicaid funding of elective abortions. But a Hennepin County District Court judge struck down that measure in 1994, and the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the ruling in its Dec. 15, 1995, Doe v. Gomez decision. Gomez claimed a very broad “right” to abortion in the Minnesota Constitution, and ruled that if the state’s Medicaid program covers childbirth, it must cover abortion as well.

A ruling last July in Ramsey County District Court, Doe v. Minnesota, relied on Gomez to strike down a number of decades-old abortion-related laws in Minnesota. The invalidated laws included Minnesota’s Woman’s Right to Know informed consent law, parental notification law, and a law preventing non-physicians from performing abortions.

“Although the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision allows states to decide their own abortion laws, Gomez prevents Minnesotans from having a say,” says Fischbach. “The courts have wiped away commonsense, bipartisan, and woman-empowering laws.”

In 2020, taxpayers reimbursed abortion practitioners just over $1 million for 4,410 abortions, according to the Minnesota Department of Human Services. Since the Gomez decision, taxpayers have bankrolled close to 100,000 abortions at a cost of about $29 million.

In her dissenting opinion in Doe v. Gomez, Justice Mary Jeanne Coyne blasted the Court majority for “abandon[ing] all vestige of neutrality” and “frankly extol[ling] abortion as a positive good.”

Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life is Minnesota's oldest and largest pro-life organization. Founded in 1968, 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.