25 years ago today, on December 15, 1995, the Minnesota Supreme Court decided Doe v. Gomez. The U.S. Supreme Court had already invented the right to abortion on a federal level in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Doe v. Gomez enshrined abortion in Minnesota law, as well, and took it one step further. The Court decided that the state constitution guarantees a right, not only to abortion, but to abortions funded by taxpayer dollars.
The consequences of this decision have been huge. First, this ruling has created a significant hurdle to ending abortion in Minnesota. Even if the US Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, Minnesota will not be able to end abortion in our state until our state constitution is amended or the Minnesota Supreme Court overrules Doe v. Gomez.
Secondly, research has found that public funding for abortion for abortion is consistently linked to higher abortion rates, and that one in four women who would have used Medicaid funds to pay for an abortion choose not to abort if funding is not available. Every year, Minnesota taxpayers foot the bill for abortions that would not have taken place if they weren’t subsidized by taxpayer dollars. That means that instead of giving women resources to safely have and care for their children, we’re only providing resources to end the lives of children in the womb through abortion.
In 1993, only 23 abortions were paid for with Minnesota tax dollars. One year after Doe v. Gomez went into effect, that number jumped to almost 3,000. Last year, your tax dollars paid for over 4,000 abortions in Minnesota, making up 43% of the abortions committed in our state.
Even while abortion rates in Minnesota are gradually declining, in part due to the success of the pro-life movement in showing the humanity of children in the womb, the percentage of taxpayer-funded abortions in Minnesota has been increasing. Doe v. Gomez enables the abortion industry to continue making money from taking innocent lives in the womb.
Since 1995, our state has paid over $25 million dollars to subsidize abortions, that’s roughly $1 million dollars per year. 25 years after Doe v. Gomez, over 90,000 Minnesota babies have been killed with our own tax dollars. To put that into perspective, that’s over 20% of the population of Minneapolis that has been wiped out by taxpayer-funded abortion in our state. There are 90,000 children, teens, and young adults missing from Minnesota’s population because of Doe v. Gomez. Think of a school gym full of 1,000 happy, smiling children, ready to watch a Christmas pageant. Now imagine 128 of those kids suddenly disappearing, leaving empty chairs behind them. That’s what abortion has done in Minnesota - but because we don’t see those empty chairs, we don’t even realize what’s happened.
Minnesota’s constitution makes no mention of abortion. This “right to abortion” was invented by the court. What the Minnesota constitution does say is that “Government is instituted for the security, benefit and protection of the people.” As a result of Doe v. Gomez the state of Minnesota spends over a million dollars every year putting babies to death instead of protecting them.
So, how do we end Doe v. Gomez? How do we make a mother’s womb in Minnesota the safest place for a child to be? There are three ways:
The US Supreme Court: If the United States Supreme Court reverses Roe v. Wade and leaves abortion up to the states, Doe v. Gomez will insure that nothing will change in Minnesota. But if the Supreme Court goes further, and finds a clear right to life for children in the womb in the US Constitution, then that would override state abortion laws and make our whole country a safe place for children in the womb.
Changing the Constitution: If a majority in the Minnesota State Senate and the Minnesota State House of Representatives worked together to put a question on the ballot so that Minnesotans can decide, we could amend the Constitution to say that Minnesota values and protects life from conception to natural death. That is something we will be working to do.
Pro-life judges. Finally, if we have a pro-life governor in Minnesota who appoints pro-life judges to the Supreme Court, they could revisit Doe v. Gomez, and potentially even throw it out, because, in reality, there is no right to state-funded abortion in the Minnesota constitution.
In conclusion, Doe v. Gomez, like Roe v. Wade, is a legal fiction that hurts women and kills children in the womb. But there are three ways that we could overturn it in the future and protect kids in Minnesota. If you want to join with us in this crucial work fighting for life, family, and religious freedom in Minnesota, go to mfc.org/subscribe.
Check out our video, Doe v. Gomez: A Bloody Anniversary
