We’re thrilled to announce the return of Women Winning’s Annual Luncheon – Monday, June 3rd at the Depot in Minneapolis! We’re thrilled to welcome Senator Laphonza Butler, former head of California SEIU and EMILYs List, as our featured speaker this year!

GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS for this unforgettable event are NOW AVAILABLE! 

We can’t wait to see you there!

DISCLAIMER: Senator Butler is appearing at this event only as a featured speaker and is not asking for funds or donations.

We’re approaching the two-year anniversary of the end of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that guaranteed the right to an abortion for half a century.

The fall of Roe has heightened the intensity of a battle over reproductive rights across the country. And here in Minnesota, it’s inspiring activists to continue to pursue an Equal Rights Amendment that would enshrine gender protection and reproductive justice into the state Constitution.

MPR News host Angela Davis spoke about where the Equal Rights Amendment stands in the Minnesota legislature today and the state of gender inequality in 2024 with Rep. Kaohly Her and former Rep. Betty Folliard.

A new anti-abortion ad campaign is spreading across the state of Minnesota this week — in newspapers, on radio, and on TV. Supporters of abortion rights argue it’s misleading. FOX 9 fact checked the initial ad to see what holds up and what doesn’t. 

The ads talk about the law passed here last year and a new Equal Rights Amendment under consideration. They say it’s extreme, but legislators who passed it say the real extreme agenda is the one the ads push. "Abortion up to birth isn’t compassionate," says the TV commercial. "It’s way out there." Fifteen years of Minnesota statistics are posted to the Minnesota Department of Health website, and they show six abortions past a gestational age of 30 weeks. So 99.996% of abortions in Minnesota happened before that stage.

"All of them were because there was something found during that pregnancy in a regular prenatal exam that found that that baby was incompatible with life," said Sen. Alice Mann, (DFL)-Bloomington. "That baby, as soon as it was born, would die or was already dying." Sen. Mann is an emergency room doctor and a Democrat who supported the abortion law passed in 2023. She says women don’t stay pregnant for several months and then just decide to abort a viable fetus. In her eyes, the law just removes a stigma and barriers for women already in grief. "We passed a law that says that you can make your own medical decisions with you and your doctor in your exam room, period," Sen. Mann said.

Jaelyn was 19 weeks and five days into a much-wanted pregnancy when the cramping began—slowly at first, then in an insistent rhythm that signaled she was in labor. Several excruciating hours later, emergency doctors delivered a heart-wrenching diagnosis. The amniotic sac was protruding from her cervix; her baby was doomed. “There’s nothing we can do,” Jaelyn recalled the on-call OB-GYN telling her, “because if we try to push it back in, it’s very likely you’re going to get an infec­tion. And the baby will die. And it puts you at risk too. So, we have to see this thing through.”

It’s a scenario that has become horrifyingly common in conservative states since the end of Roe v Wade. Near-total bans on abortion have made it almost impossible for doctors to terminate pregnancies in an emergency, even when the mother’s life is in danger or there’s no chance the fetus will survive. As lawyers for Idaho face off against the Biden administration over the federal statute that requires hospitals to treat and stabilize any patient experiencing a medical emergency, the downstream consequences of pregnant women being denied necessary care are at the heart of what could be the most significant reproductive rights ruling from the Supreme Court since Dobbs.