DFL leadership voices support for sex education, abortion rights

Pro-choice activists rallied at the State  Capitol rotunda on Tuesday in support of abortion rights and comprehensive sex education. The rally, part of Pro-Choice Lobby Day, drew the DFL leadership from both legislative bodies, along with activists and other legislators.

A boisterous Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis, was joined at the podium by House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis, and both expressly challenged Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty to sign a comprehensive sex education bill in this session.

“Most Minnesotans think comprehensive sex education is just common sense,” said Kelliher. “We’re going to support it even if we have to face that little red Flair pen again,” she added, referring to last year’s veto threat by Pawlenty, which scuttled a legislative measure aimed at funding sex education.

“Family planning makes sense whether you’re a conservative, a liberal, or an agnostic,” Pogemiller added. “Sex ed makes sense no matter your political views. You don’t have to be out there on the far right, we don’t have to be on the far left. You just need to do what is common sense, Governor.”

Rev. T. Michael Rock, the minister at Robbinsdale United Church of Christ and a member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, told the crowd that abortion rights are essential “for women to have full moral agency.”

“The men in the room should listen, support, and then get out of the way on legislative issues,” he said.

State Sen. Patricia Torres Ray, DFL-Minneapolis, urged those assembled to remember that abortion access is limited for working-class women. “What we’re really talking about is class and access,” she said. “The educated women who have resources to make this choice are making that choice.”

Rep. Ken Tschumper, DFL-La Crescent, credited Republican lawmakers for joining with DFLers to support last year’s comprehensive family planning bill. “Last year we passed comprehensive family planning for the first time in 20 years,” he said. “And the real heroes in that group were the pro-life legislators who stood up to a certain group whose name I won’t mention” — a reference to the anti-abortion advocacy group Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life.