As a key part of our mission, it is our honor to be the voice of Protestant evangelicals in Minnesota public policy. On February 17, the Minnesota legislative session for 2026 will begin, and our public policy team will be in Saint Paul to represent our mission – protecting beginning and end of life, upholding the family, and standing for religious freedom – values that we share with you.

When lawmakers gather in Saint Paul for legislative session, MFC advances legislation seeking to enact state laws which protect life, family, and religious freedom. We defend against state legislation which subverts those values.

Please pray for our public policy team Rebecca Delahunt and Renee Carlson to advance these values in a shorter legislative session this year. We are on the front lines at the Capitol working to advance these values with lawmakers, staff, and fellow advocates.

To keep you informed, we’ve outlined some of our main public policy proposals for the upcoming 2026 session:

Requiring digital pornography companies to age gate users (HF1434 | SF2105)

Cashiers checked identification in the past when a young person attempted to purchase a pornographymagazine or movie. This age-gating protection unfortunately did not carry over into the digital world, where most porn is consumed today. Now the content is hosted and spread online, and user data fulfills the transaction for the company.

In the age of digital porn, unintentional exposure to this content is a common occurrence. A 2022 demographically representative survey conducted by Common Sense Media found that 58% of teens in the United States have accidentally seen porn.

In recent years, half the states in the country have passed laws which require porn companies to age-gate users. Companies can comply in a variety of industry standard ways, often redirecting the potential user to a third-party Age Verification provider to check age before signaling to the porn company whether the potential user is over 18 or under 18.

Minnesota Family Council has been advancing legislation for the past couple years to require companies to employ age verification and has secured bipartisan support for the bill. See our flyer titled “Protecting Teens from Digital Pornography” for more information. Laws like Minnesota’s bill HF 1434 have been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. See True North Legal’s amicus brief submitted to the Court in a significant case, FSC v. Paxton, finding age-verification laws are constitutional.

Requiring social media platforms to obtain parental consent for users under 16, remove addictive features and commercial advertising for these users

As internal studies conducted by Meta have shown, social media platforms are designed to addict users, regardless of age, by keeping brain space for as much time as possible. While this design harms both adults and children, it is particularly unscrupulous for companies to use on child and youth users of these products. Parents should know on which platforms their children have created accounts (contracts,) and companies should ensure that a parent has given consent for their child to contract with these companies.

For these reasons, we are advancing legislation which would require Verifiable Parental Consent for a user under 16 years old. If a parent provides this consent, then the user experience for the youth account holder must be altered: The platform cannot use addictive features such as infinite scroll, autoplay video, a profile-based feed, and push notifications. No commercial advertising may target a user of a minor account, and the privacy features must be turned on.

Existing technology already estimates a user’s age for platforms, and federal regulatory guidelines and tech exist for obtaining Verifiable Parental Consent. Rather than estimating age to target content and ads to youth, this law would require companies to estimate age to protect kids.

Since the tech and regulatory guidelines already exist, we argue that it only remains for government to require that social media platforms create safer products for child and youth users. See our flyer titled “Stop Harmful Addictions of Social Media” for more information.

Requiring the Minnesota Department of Health to provide information on Restorative Reproductive Medicine in its materials

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) provides guidelines for Minnesotans struggling with infertility. Unfortunately, the guidelines only provide education on options which bypass the body, focusing on assisted reproductive technologies such as in-vitro fertilization, cryopreservation of eggs, and embryo storage.

We recognize the lack of healthcare that women and couples have received as most fertility clinicians bypass the health issues patients are facing, only focusing on the product of a healthy baby. We support legislation to require the MDH to include information about restorative reproductive medicine into existing public health programs including family planning services, maternal and child health programs, and women’s health initiatives. See our position statement on Restorative Reproductive Medicine for more information.

Opposing legislation that would protect abortion, gender identity in Minnesota’s constitution (HF501 | SF473)

The so-called “Equal Rights Amendment” (ERA) is a proposed amendment to Minnesota’s state constitution which would create constitutional protection for abortion and a personal identity of sex rejection (“gender identity.”) Notably, this ERA language does not include protection for religious freedom.

If the ERA passes, judges would likely interpret the state constitution to protect the forcing of females to share private spaces such as restrooms, locker rooms, and dorms; state grants; scholarships; athletic opportunities; prison facilities; and women’s shelters with males who reject sexed identity and cosplay women. It also would likely create constitutional protection for taxpayer funding of sex-rejecting procedures.

In states where other ERAs have passed, judges have interpreted the state constitution to protect taxpayer funding of abortion. Since the state constitution is the highest legal protection of the state (beside federal law,) protecting abortion access and funding and public accommodation of sex rejection would be given the highest legal protection in Minnesota.

In Minnesota, proposed state constitutional amendments must pass majorities of both the state House of Representatives and the state Senate before voters in a general election must approve of the amendment to the constitution. Overturning a part of the constitution is a generational undertaking, unlike regular state statutes, which are more easily changed from legislative session to legislative session by lawmakers alone.

Opposing legalization of Commercial Surrogacy

‍Commercial surrogacy is a process by which a contract is made with a woman to serve as the surrogate (also called “gestational carrier”) to carry and birth a baby for another person or couple. The baby may originally come from the sperm and egg of the couple paying the surrogate, or a third party’s gametic material may have been purchased or provided to facilitate fertilization. The adult(s) who contractually receive the child upon birth are called the Intended Parent(s).

Surrogacy arrangements are most often for-profit, meaning that the surrogate is paid for womb rent, her time, and labor. Unlike adoption, there are generally no requirements for IP(s) to undergo background checks, interviews, and home studies. Financial resources are the only qualification. Commercial surrogacy is already an industry in Minnesota, but it is considered extra-legal as there is no legal framework to enforce the contracts.

If the pregnancy goes according to contractual obligations and the baby is born, the IPs pay the surrogate for womb rent and labor, assume legal custody of the child, and remove the child from the child’s only known mother – the surrogate. See our position statement on Commercial Surrogacy for more information.

Surrogacy involves the intentional separation of a child from his or her birth mother for placement with either related or unrelated adult(s). Because commercial surrogacy is in effect a form of human trafficking, Minnesota Family Council opposes efforts at legalization.

Opposing legalization of Physician Assisted Suicide (HF2998 | SF3215)

Assisted suicide legislation takes on different forms in various jurisdictions; the most recent public policy proposal in Minnesota would allow a person who has received a 6-month prognosis to be prescribed life-ending drugs from a medical professional.

Legalization of physician assisted suicide (PAS) is an abandonment of care for vulnerable people. In Minnesota, people already can choose or refuse healthcare, and they can seek palliative or hospice care. When PAS is legalized, people can seek drugs to terminate their life with sign-off from a provider. When healthcare is expensive and maintaining life can be costly, the supposed “right to die” quickly becomes one’s “duty to die.” The only difference between this scenario and euthanasia is self-administration of the drugs rather than provider administration.

In Canada, both PAS and euthanasia are legal. In a research report on the impact of “medical aid in dying” (MAiD) in Canada, Cardus, a Canadian Christian think tank, reports, “The evidence indicates that MAiD is increasingly driven by disability status, rather than by underlying illness.” When assisted suicide is legalized, the marginalized and vulnerable in society, particularly the elderly and folks with disabilities, are targeted to consider this a “treatment.” Physician assisted suicide is an abandonment of people who need healthcare and support.

Opposing legalization of Mobile Sports Betting (SF757 | HF1842)

Where sports betting is legal, companies with licenses to operate such as DraftKings, FanDuel, PrizePicks, and others turn each phone into a sportsbook, allowing each adult to gamble on any athletic activity across the world at every moment. Rather than placing a bet on the outcome of a game, these apps prompt users to bet on any and every aspect of a game. Notably, for the bill in consideration in Minnesota, most of the tax revenues are distributed to various gambling interest groups, and no tax revenue goes to the General Fund.

Longitudinal research from Southern Methodist University found that less than 5% of sports gamblers are observed to be net winners. A recent study from Northwestern University found that legalization drains household finances. For every $1 spent on mobile sports gambling, household net investments decreased by $1. UCLA and USC research measured that online sports gambling increases the likelihood of household bankruptcy by as much as 25 to 30% after 3-4 years of legalization.

Minnesota Family Council will continue opposition to efforts to legalize mobile sports gambling. Law should teach what is good and protect citizens from predatory practices of business which are supported by government. Legal mobile sports gambling normalizes a form of usury by protecting companies which addict and indebt users by design.