ST. PAUL, Minn. — On Friday, federal judges in Texas and Washington issued separate, contradictory decisions on the future of medication abortion access across the country. A Texas judge suspended the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs commonly used to end a pregnancy; while a separate case in Washington state ordered the FDA to refrain from making any changes to the availability of mifepristone.
Minnesotan legislative leaders and reproductive rights advocates, including Senator Mary Kunesh (DFL-New Brighton), held a press conference on the state of reproductive healthcare access in Minnesota on Monday morning. Senator Kunesh releases the following statement:
“Friday’s conflicting federal court decisions underscore the urgency of the Minnesota legislature’s work to protect Minnesotans’ fundamental right to the full spectrum reproductive healthcare. The rulings demonstrate that we cannot rely on courts stacked with anti-choice judges to apply the rule of law fairly. For the sake of all Minnesotans and the people in surrounding states who look to us for safe access to healthcare, we must protect our healthcare providers and any patients who come to Minnesota seeking reproductive care; and we must strike any antiquated, medically unsound laws on reproductive healthcare from Minnesota’s legal code. We must pass the Reproductive Freedom Defense Act and Reproductive Freedom Codification Act so that Minnesota remains a state that treats reproductive healthcare patients with dignity, despite these attempts to confuse providers and deny patients the care they need.”
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