October 11, 2024 | Press Release
MINNEAPOLIS — The MCCL State Victory Fund has launched a digital ad campaign spotlighting the reality of vulnerable newborns and Minnesota’s extreme policies that threaten them. The ads call out specific incumbent state lawmakers for their votes to repeal a requirement that born-alive infants receive medically appropriate care that could save their lives.
“As our ad campaign shows, abortion survivors are real people,” said Cathy Blaeser of the MCCL Victory Fund. “But DFL lawmakers voted to put newborns who survive abortion or who have disabilities in jeopardy—to allow these babies to be set aside to die. We’re going to make Minnesotans aware of exactly what happened. We’re calling for compassion, not this cruel extremism.”
The ads feature a woman who survived an abortion procedure and whose mother fought to save her life after birth. They also tell the story of another woman whose baby with disabilities was denied lifesaving surgery. Versions of the ad will run in selected House districts around the state, and a statewide version has also been created. The ads will run for at least two weeks.
In 2023, state lawmakers changed Minnesota’s Born Alive Infants Protection Act. Among other changes, they repealed the requirement that reasonable measures be taken to “preserve the life and health of the born alive infant,” replacing it with a requirement for only comfort care (SF 2995). Defenders of this change—and many unquestioning media outlets—have made the demonstrably false claim that the previous policy required extraordinary and burdensome measures in hopeless cases; in truth, it only required “reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice” to preserve life so that babies wouldn’t simply be set aside to die.
Under Minnesota’s new policy, they can be.
For a point-by-point explanation of the changes to Minnesota’s born-alive protections, including documentation and responses to common questions and confusions, see this recent MCCL article.