ST PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has signed an executive order meant to protect the state's abortion services from laws in neighboring states, following the U.S. Supreme Court decision ending constitutional protections for the procedure.
Walz said his action should help shield people seeking or providing abortions in Minnesota from facing legal consequences in other states. The Supreme Court's opinion to reverse Roe v. Wade immediately halted most abortions in South Dakota and Wisconsin and enacted a trigger law to end abortions in North Dakota after 30 days.
Abortion remains legal in Minnesota. Walz has vowed to reject requests to extradite individuals who are accused of committing acts related to reproductive health care that are not criminal offenses in Minnesota.
“My office has been and will continue to be a firewall against legislation that would reverse reproductive freedom,” Walz said.
The Red River Women's Clinic in Fargo, which is North Dakota's sole abortion provider, plans to move across the river to Minnesota, clinic owner Tammi Kromenaker said Saturday. She said she has secured a location in Moorhead but gave no further details.
Thirteen states, mainly in the South and Midwest, already had laws to ban abortion in the event Roe was overturned. Another half-dozen states have near-total bans or prohibitions after 6 weeks, before many women know they are pregnant.
In roughly a half-dozen other states, including West Virginia and Wisconsin, the fight will be over dormant abortion bans that were enacted before Roe was decided in 1973 or new proposals to sharply limit when abortions can be performed.
Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers told The Associated Press on Saturday that he will support legal action to overturn a 173-year-old state abortion ban. He also said he would not appoint district attorneys who would enforce the law, and would commute prison sentences for anyone convicted under it.
“We’re looking at everything,” he said.
Four years after winning election by a narrow margin, Evers said he believes this issue will energize independents and he hopes to translate anger over Roe's demise into votes this fall.
“Any time you take half the people in Wisconsin and make them second-class citizens, I have to believe there’s going to be a reaction to that,” Evers said.
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