Minnesota Independent

Minnesota GOP moves to ban funding for Planned Parenthood

By Andy Birkey | 04.18.11 | 3:42 pm

Minnesota legislators introduced a bill on Monday that would ban state family planning money from going to any organization that offers abortion services, advocates for the right to choose an abortion, counsels pregnant women that abortion is an option or is affiliated with any organization that engages in those activities. In fact, under the bill, family planning dollars cannot be used to refer women to abortion services even if they are explicitly seeking those services. The bill introduced on Monday is the twelfth anti-abortion rights bill introduced so far this session.

Report: Contraception use among Evangelicals is high

By Sofia Resnick | 04.15.11 | 4:23 pm

Though the contentious 2011 budget process is over and Planned Parenthood will continue receiving federal support, the fight against the organization continues, as anti-abortion rights groups are blasting certain senators for voting for the legislation, claiming those votes are votes for abortion. Yet as a new report by the Guttmacher Institute demonstrates, in refusing to defund Planned Parenthood, the senators voted to protect family planning services that are important to some of the same people who so vehemently oppose abortion: Christians, Evangelicals in particular.

St. Michael-Albertville High School. Photo: STMA Schools

School district: Alliance Defense Fund confused about anti-abortion student group

By Andy Birkey | 04.14.11 | 11:23 am

The superintendent of a central Minnesota school district says a lawsuit against it by an anti-abortion legal group is a misunderstanding and that the litigation came out of the blue last Thursday. A representative of the Alliance Defense Fund, a national group that has sued numerous school districts, says the school should not be surprised by the lawsuit and claims it continues to violate students’ rights by not listing the All Life Is Valuable Club as “curricular.”

Abortion bills pass committee, could trigger Supreme Court challenge

By Andy Birkey | 04.13.11 | 1:29 pm

A pair of anti-abortion rights bill are moving through the Minnesota House and Senate this week. On Tuesday, a Senate committee passed a bill to ban abortion at 20 weeks gestation. And in the House and Senate a bill to ban taxpayer funding for abortion was passed out of committee. It was clear from testimony on both sides of the debate that Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life and Republican lawmakers are seeking a high-profile lawsuit on the issue of abortion, and the bill to ban taxpayer funding for abortion is structured so that a challenge would go directly to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

CNN: Bachmann’s Planned Parenthood claim is false

By Andy Birkey | 04.13.11 | 11:40 am

CNN’s Anderson Cooper fact-checked Rep. Michele Bachmann’s remarks about Planned Parenthood on Tuesday, particularly Bachmann’s repeated claims that “Planned Parenthood wants to be the LensCrafters of Big Abortion.” Cooper found that claim, during a social conservative gathering for potential presidential candidates, to be incorrect. The Minnesota Independent’s check on that claim last year came to a similar conclusion.

Lawsuit filed against district that denied anti-abortion rights student group

By Andy Birkey | 04.08.11 | 1:42 pm

The national religious right legal group Alliance Defense Fund filed suit in the U.S. District Court of Minnesota last week on behalf of a student who is trying to form an anti-abortion rights group at the St. Michael-Albertville High School. The All Life Is Valuable (ALIV) Club was denied permission to become an “officially recognized club” because school administrators said it didn’t “support the student body as a whole.”

T-Paw backs defunding of Planned Parenthood; Klobuchar, Franken opposed

By Andy Birkey | 04.04.11 | 1:57 pm

Again stirring controversy on Capitol Hill is a measure in the U.S. House budget bill that would prevent federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood and cut Title X family planning funds. Potential presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty told anti-abortion rights group the Susan B. Anthony List that he supports defunding Planned Parenthood. Meanwhile, Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken signed a letter opposing the provision.

Minnesota GOP seeks to defund family planning programs

By Andy Birkey | 03.29.11 | 8:45 am

Senate Republicans are working to defund family planning programs in Minnesota and prevent the state from accepting federal family planning dollars. The health and human services budget bill slashes money for programs that provide services to families either seeking to become pregnant or to prevent becoming pregnant. Those funds cannot be used to perform abortions or provide referrals to abortion services. The move mirrors a push by Republicans at the federal level to defund Planned Parenthood. Along with county public health departments, Planned Parenthood clinics in Minnesota are a major beneficiary of family planning funds.

Minnesota Capitol. Photo: Paul Weimer, Flickr

Senate Republicans seek repeal of minors’ consent for health care

By Andy Birkey | 03.28.11 | 7:48 am

Senate Republicans have included a provision in a health and human services omnibus bill that would repeal Minnesota’s minors’ consent laws. Those laws, first enacted in 1971, allow Minnesotans under the age of 18 to access mental and physical health care, as well as substance use care. The bill would strip those laws from the books and only allow a minor to seek those services in the case of incest. The Minnesota Department of Health, the Mayo Clinic, the American Academy of Pediatrics and teen pregnancy prevention groups all testified in opposition.

Republicans’ anti-abortion ‘army of IRS agents’

By John Tomasic | 03.23.11 | 10:23 am

Last year Rep. Michele Bachmann led the Republican charge against health care reform legislation, arguing that it would be the worst kind of big government intrusion. She warned it would insert government between Americans and their doctors and that the Obama Administration would let loose an army of IRS agents to knock on doors and force citizens to pay up for insurance. Yet, as Mother Jones reported last week, Bachmann and other anti-abortion congressional Republicans this year have proposed a series of bills that would put government between women and their doctors and set loose the IRS to investigate how women who had abortions became pregnant and how they paid for their abortions.