Legislative history In the 1950s, the state legislature passed a law stating that a woman who had an abortion or actively sought one (regardless of whether she went through with it) was guilty of a criminal offense. Parental consent laws passed by Massachusetts and Minnesota in the 1980s created over 12,000 petitions to bypass consent. Of these, 21 were denied and half of these denials were overturned on appeal. The state was one of 23 states in 2007 to have a detailed abortion-specific informed consent requirement. Arkansas, Minnesota and Oklahoma all require that women seeking abortions after 20-weeks be verbally informed that the fetus may feel pain during the abortion procedure despite a Journal of the American Medical Association conclusion that pain sensors do not develop in the fetus until between weeks 23 and 30. The state legislature was one of four states nationwide that tried, and failed, to pass an early abortion ban in 2012 (often called a "
fetal heartbeat bill" by proponents). In 2018, the state was one of eleven where the legislature introduced a bill that would have banned abortion in almost all cases. It did not pass. The state legislature was one of ten states nationwide that tried to unsuccessfully pass a "heartbeat bill" in 2018. Only Iowa successfully passed such a bill, but it was struck down by the courts.
Judicial history In a 1894 case on abortion, the
Minnesota Supreme Court said, "As a first impression, it may seem to be an unsound rule that one who solicits the commission of an offense, and willingly submits to its being committed upon her own person, should not be deemed an accomplice, while those whom she has thus solicited should be deemed principal criminals in the transaction. But in cases of this kind the public welfare demands the application of this rule, and its exceptions from the general rule seems to be justified by the wisdom of experience. The wife, then, in this case, was not, within the rules of the law, an accomplice. She was the victim of the cruel act which resulted in her death. Misguided by her own desires, and mistaken in her belief, she, by the advice of the defendant, submitted to his treatment, willing, it may be; but the desire of one, and the criminal act of the other, resulted in the death of one, and the imprisonment of the other."
Hodgson v. Minnesota The 1990 US Supreme Court case
Hodgson v. Minnesota said that parental consent can cause danger for minors seeking abortions if physical, emotional or sexual abuse is already present. The case concerned a Minnesota law that required notifying both parents of a minor before she could undergo an abortion; it also contained a judicial bypass provision designed to take effect only if a court found it necessary.
Dr. Jane Hodgson, a Minneapolis gynecologist, challenged the law. The Eighth Circuit had ruled that the law would have been unconstitutional without a judicial bypass option. A 2022 ruling by a state district court in
Doe v. Minnesota decided that
certain regulations on abortion were also unconstitutional.
Clinic history Between 1982 and 1992, the number of
abortion clinics in the state decreased by six, going from twenty in 1982 to fourteen in 1992. In 2014, there were six abortion clinics in the state. In 2014, 95% of the counties in the state did not have an abortion clinic. That year, 59% of women in the state aged 15–44 lived in a county without an abortion clinic. In 2025, Planned Parenthood North Central States announced it would close four clinics in Minnesota and four in Iowa due to federal funding cuts. == Statistics ==