On August 1st, a new law went into effect in The North Star State, repealing a requirement to provide appropriate care to an infant born alive during a failed abortion. Under the new version of the abortion reporting law, those live births will no longer be reported to the state.
Specifically, the requirement that practitioners report "whether the abortion resulted in a born alive infant," "any medical actions taken to preserve the life of the born alive infant," "whether the born alive infant survived," and "the status of the born alive infant, should the infant survive, if known," has been repealed.
In support of repealing the protection for newborns, some lawmakers falsely claimed that the language required inappropriate or futile attempts to save the infants' lives, when it simply required "reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice."
Pointing out that disabled babies, whose lives are often devalued, could be especially at risk from the denial of this basic protection, Cathy Blaeser of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL) says there is no justification for the secrecy.
"Planned Parenthood and the other abortion providers do not want Minnesotans to know how many abortions will be happening under the laws that the DFL (Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor) leadership and Governor [Tim] Walz (D) passed this year," she tells AFN. "Abortion up to birth, leaving a baby to die – they do not want people to know those numbers."
That, she says, is because most Minnesotans do not subscribe to late-term abortions or to leaving a baby who survives an abortion to die.
"They want to shroud those numbers in secrecy; they want to work in the dark in the cloak of secrecy," Blaeser asserts. "They don't want people to know what they're doing, how late in pregnancy they're doing it, and what they're doing with the babies that are left to die."
Nationally, states are not required to report that information to the federal government, which means there is no accurate record of how many children are surviving abortions and being left to die.
Accurate advertising
The abortion lobby in a predominately Catholic city has failed to promote the lie that pro-life crisis pregnancy centers are engaged in deceptive advertising.
The City Council of Easthampton, Massachusetts recently approved an ordinance accusing the pro-life facilities of deceptively luring in pregnant women. But the pro-abortion mayor, Nicole LaChapelle, vetoed it.
"The mayor, who is herself a proponent of legal abortion, cited fiscal concerns arising from possible litigation which might be expected if the ordinance were to be enacted," explains C.J. Doyle of the Catholic League of Massachusetts.
This week, council members failed by one vote to override the veto of the ordinance that Doyle says was based on false ideology.
"First of all, it embraced the language of the abortion industry by deriding pro-life crisis pregnancy centers as – quote, unquote – 'limited service pregnancy centers,'" he details. "Secondly, it promoted the big lie by big abortion that they're engaged in widespread deceptive advertising."
Had the ordinance not been vetoed, the city would have had license to harass the pro-life centers and encourage consumers to file complaints against them. Doyle says the failed override vote is a victory for the blue state in that it saved the city from First Amendment-based court challenges.
The only pregnancy care center in Easthampton is Bethlehem House, which is affiliated with the Diocese of Springfield. It was vandalized by abortion fanatics in August of 2022.
