Response to MCCL Opinion Piece

Living infants in Minnesota have the same protections in 2023 they have always had. Claims by anti-choice forces that they do not are false.

Every infant born alive is considered a person, with all the rights of a person, under Minnesota law. Delivering an infant and leaving it to die without appropriate care would be a crime as well as violating medical ethics and inviting a malpractice lawsuit for any medical professionals involved. That’s why there is no need for special protection of infants born alive after an abortion.

The unnecessary “born alive infant” law supported the anti-choice agenda by making people think that women frivolously have abortions late in pregnancy and that doctors would perform any abortion on demand. Additional requirements that the procedure be done in a hospital and that there be a second doctor present made such abortion more expensive and harder to access. Of course, that is what the anti-abortion forces want.

Minnesota has not had any gestational limits on abortion since 1976, when a court struck down the existing law as too vague. That’s right-Minnesotans have been making their own decisions about abortion at all stages of pregnancy for almost 50 years. Even without a ban, very few abortions are performed late in pregnancy–usually only one or two. Almost no one carries a pregnancy for more than 6 months, decides to have an abortion just because, and finds a doctor to do it. Abortions late in pregnancy are almost always performed because of danger to the mother’s health or critical defects in the fetus.

Anti-choice forces now claim to worry that data on “born alive” infants will be hidden from view. Minnesota did not require this reporting at all until 2015. Since then, there have been on average only 3 such reports per year, fewer than 0.03% of abortion reports, and there has not been a single report of an infant surviving. We don’t know the circumstances of these abortions, but many of the reports mention fetal anomalies incompatible with life. It is likely that others are performed to save the mother’s life or health.

Another falsehood says the law will now only require “comfort care.” The new law contains comfort language, which has nothing to do with comfort care. “Comfort language” means language in a law that assures people about what the law is, even when it is not changing. In this case, the new law restates what should be obvious to everyone: that newborn infants are persons with the right to appropriate medical care.

The new law says: “An infant who is born alive shall be fully recognized as a human person, and accorded immediate protection under the law. All reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice, including the compilation of appropriate medical records, shall be taken by the responsible medical personnel to care for the infant who is born alive.”

“All reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice” may mean trying everything to keep the infant alive, or it may mean letting the parents have a few precious moments with their terminally ill infant. Life-saving measures may be required in some circumstances, but clearly not when they are futile. “Consistent with good medical practice” depends on the individual situation and can’t be determined by politicians in St. Paul.

Abortions are rare late in pregnancy and are not done frivolously. The Minnesota Legislature took steps this year to reduce state coercion in these difficult circumstances and give back control to the people involved and the medical professionals they choose.

Representative Tina Liebling

District 24B - Rochester, MN