What’s ahead for abortion access in Minnesota under a Trump administration
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With Republicans gaining full control of the U.S. House and Senate, President-elect Trump, GOP lawmakers, and those appointed to key posts in the federal government have the capacity to make significant changes to reproductive health policies and abortion access.
While detailed plans have yet to emerge, health and legal experts, practitioners and advocates in Minnesota are closely monitoring the new administration for hints about what federal changes to abortion policy could mean for the state.
Earlier this year, Trump called himself the most “pro-life president ever” and often takes credit for selecting Supreme Court judges that overturned Roe v. Wade, which opened the door for states to craft their own abortion laws, including bans.
Last year, Gov. Tim Walz signed the right to abortion into state statute, ensuring that every pregnant person who lives in or travels to Minnesota may make decisions about their own reproductive health care.
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Under Minnesota law, abortion is legal at any point during pregnancy.
“We’re going to do everything we can to keep it that way,” said Jess Braverman, legal director at Gender Justice, a St. Paul-based nonprofit focused on advancing gender equity through the law.
The president-elect has said he won’t sign a federal abortion ban and that decisions about abortion restrictions should be left to the states. But he has not said explicitly that he would veto national abortion restrictions.
Braverman said she expects Republicans to attempt some form of a federal ban through legislation, but she acknowledges that could take some time. She added that there are many other ways to limit abortion, such as withholding federal funding.
“There are scenarios where states wouldn’t be able to get around a ban,” Braverman said. “But a lot of the ways that we’re going to see health care rolled back may not be that extreme.”
Some lawmakers favor restricting access to the abortion medication mifepristone by changing the way the federal government enforces the Comstock Act. This 1873 law remains in effect today and could be reinterpreted to prevent the mailing of drugs and instruments related to abortion, substantially reducing abortion availability nationwide.
A related strategy is found in Project 2025, a 900-page governing blueprint created by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which calls for the FDA to withdraw its approval of mifepristone entirely.
A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June upheld mifepristone accessibility, saying the anti-abortion doctors bringing the lawsuit had not proved they were harmed by the FDA’s approval of the drug.
Trump has made contradictory statements about mifepristone. At times, the president-elect said he would not restrict access. Other times, he stated he would be open to a ban.
Research from the Guttmacher Institute, a sexual and reproductive health research and policy organization, shows that in 2023, 63 percent of all abortions in the United States were medication abortions.
Similarly, nearly 60 percent of patients at Whole Woman’s Health of Minnesota choose medication abortion, which typically involves a regimen of two pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, over an in-clinic abortion procedure.
Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, an independently owned, nonprofit abortion clinic in Bloomington, said if the Trump administration restricts telemedicine delivery for abortion care, or if there’s a disruption in the ability to distribute pills by mail, her clinic will carry adequate supplies in their brick-and-mortar clinics to meet patient needs. She believes any effort to use the Comstock Act to restrict the mailing of abortion medications would face strong opposition.
“Medicine has advanced. The distribution of medical supplies has completely changed from the 1850s to how things are shipped, packaged and distributed now. There would be a lot of resistance, pushback and injunctions to stop it,” Hagstrom Miller said.
Minnesota has some of the strongest abortion access protections in the country. In addition to codifying abortion rights into the state constitution, the DFL-controlled state government also removed a 24-hour waiting period and fetal viability requirements in recent years.
While the DFL retains control of the state Senate and the governor’s office, the 2024 election created an even 67-67 split between the DFL and Republican parties in the Minnesota House of Representatives, ending the DFL’s governing trifecta.
Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, an organization that opposes abortion, said Minnesotans spoke loud and clear in this election, rejecting the policies enacted over the past two years and calling for a return to the bipartisan abortion laws that were repealed.
She’s looking forward to “common sense legislation coming out of St. Paul” as the two parties must work together in a divided government.
“There’s a lot of work to be done to restore reasonable protections for parents, for the viable unborn children, and for women in terms of the information that they receive prior to abortion. And we are hopeful that we can move back to that,” Blaeser said.
In a written statement, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said he will fiercely defend Minnesota’s strong laws protecting access to abortion.
“Donald Trump already gave us his playbook in Project 2025,” Ellison said. “My office and I have been studying it to plan for how best to protect Minnesotans."