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A bill to strengthen abortion rights in Minnesota is on track to become law after a House health panel approved legislation to codify protections into state statutes after three days of the new session.

Abortion rights are already protected in Minnesota under the 1995 state Supreme Court decision Doe v. Gomez, and last summer Ramsey County District Judge Thomas Gilligan struck down the state’s requirements that only a physician could perform an abortion and that abortions after the first trimester had to be performed in hospitals. The 1995 ruling held that the Minnesota Constitution protected abortion rights.

Last summer, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and left the question of whether abortion was legal for states to determine.

Julie Ackland, chair of the Freeborn County DFL Party, was in favor of the move to codify protections into state statutes.

“I think Minnesota needs to do that because of the terrible things that are happening to women in other states,” she said. “In Texas, they’re putting a $10,000 bounty on women and people who help them get abortions, and they’re endangering women’s lives.”

She argued Minnesotans didn’t want what was happening there to happen here.

“Women’s lives are at stake here, and also I think it’s terrible,” she said. “Say a woman finds out that their baby isn’t going to live and they’re forced to carry a pregnancy for a baby that’s not viable. We just don’t need that kind of thing here in Minnesota.”

Rep. Peggy Bennett, R-Albert Lea, while not having read the bill yet, said she was pro-life and admitted the idea of codifying protections saddened her.

“I don’t think most Minnesotans agree with that,” she said. “I think that’s really extreme.”

She also argued it was “unimaginable” to consider killing a baby.

At the same time, she said the majority of Minnesotans believed it was OK to consider abortion at some point, but argued allowing it all the way to birth was extreme.
“It saddens me that I know this bill is coming up,” she said.

Bennett wanted to ensure anyone who walked into an abortion clinic knew other options, including adoption and providing more resources for the mother, with the goal of “saving as many babies as possible.”

On the possibility of future state courts overturning Doe v. Gomez, Ackland said it simply depended on who was in power and the types of judges in place.

“It’s kind of good that we have the people in charge of the state we do now, the governor and the attorney general and these people,” she said.

Bennett was worried about the potential health and safety risks codifying abortion could present.

“There are very extreme positions like that,” she said. “I look at that as extreme. You can abort a 9-month gestation baby.

“That’s a baby. To kill a baby, that’s not right in my mind. We forget that there’s another human being involved here often.”

Supporters of the bill hope to have it on Gov. Tim Walz’s desk by the end of the month.

— The Associated Press contributed to this story