Let me start with the part that isn't up for negotiation, because I don't want anyone to misread the rest of this.
In 2023 Minnesota put reproductive freedom into statute. The Protect Reproductive Options Act, Minn. Stat. § 145.409, says it plainly: "Every individual has a fundamental right to make autonomous decisions about the individual's own reproductive health," and "every individual who becomes pregnant has a fundamental right to continue the pregnancy and give birth, or obtain an abortion." That's the law of this state, and as Attorney General I would defend it fully — against any federal encroachment and any attempt to chip away at it. Full stop. I'm not going to re-litigate a right Minnesota already decided.
Now I want to change the subject, because I think the endless re-litigation is the reason we've made almost no progress on the thing both sides claim to want.
The thing both sides say they want
Ask a pro-life Minnesotan what they want and, underneath the politics, most will say: fewer abortions. Ask a pro-choice Minnesotan and, underneath the politics, most will say: nobody should have to end a pregnancy she'd otherwise keep because she can't afford the child. Those two wishes point at the same target. And the data has been telling us for decades where that target is.
The single most common reason women give for ending a pregnancy is money — they can't afford a child, or another child, right now. Not indifference. Arithmetic. The rent, the lost income, the cost of child care that runs higher than a mortgage, the medical bills, the job that has no leave. When you make parenthood affordable, a real share of those decisions changes. You don't have to take a side in the moral argument to see it: the surest way to reduce abortions is to make it possible to say yes to a child.
What that actually means
Contraception, without obstacles. The cheapest, least controversial abortion-reduction policy that exists is preventing the unintended pregnancy in the first place. Affordable, accessible contraception — including over-the-counter options — should be a given.
Prenatal and postpartum support that reaches everyone. A woman who can see a doctor, afford the birth, and count on real support in the months after is a woman with a genuine choice. Minnesota's new paid family and medical leave, launching in January, is a piece of this: the first months with a baby shouldn't cost a family its income.
Child care a working family can actually pay for. I've written elsewhere in this series that child care is infrastructure. For a woman deciding whether she can raise a child while keeping a job, it's often the deciding factor. Fix the supply and the price, and you've changed the math.
A humane adoption path. For the woman who will carry a pregnancy but can't parent, adoption should be a supported, dignified, well-resourced option — not a bureaucratic maze. Making adoption easier is something both sides can build together, and almost never do.
The honest concession
To the pro-life side: this won't satisfy you if what you want is the right itself gone. I'm not offering that, and I won't pretend to. To the pro-choice side: some will hear "reduce abortions" as a concession to the other side's framing. I don't think it is. A woman who keeps a pregnancy because her state finally made it affordable to do so has more freedom, not less — and a state that says it respects her choice but makes one of the choices financially impossible isn't really respecting it. And to both: the affordability agenda costs real money, and I'd rather say that than pretend it's free.
What I'd actually do
Defend § 145.409 against any encroachment. The right is settled.
Fund the affordability agenda — contraception access, prenatal/postpartum support, child-care supply, paid leave — as the abortion-reduction strategy it is.
Build the adoption path both sides say they want and neither funds.
The right is settled here. If you actually want fewer abortions, stop fighting about the right and start making it affordable to say yes to a child. That's a goal a pro-life Minnesotan and a pro-choice Minnesotan can work on in the same room.
First the facts. Then the fix.
Sources
Minn. Stat. § 145.409 (the Protect Reproductive Options Act, 2023), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the definition of reproductive health care (subd. 2) and the fundamental rights to reproductive autonomy and to continue or end a pregnancy (subd. 3), grounded in the Minnesota Constitution's liberty, privacy, and equality principles (subd. 4). The finding that financial inability to afford a child is among the most commonly cited reasons for abortion is drawn from the Guttmacher Institute's reasons-for-abortion research (e.g., Finer et al., 2005, and subsequent studies). Cross-references to this series' articles on paid family and medical leave (Minn. Stat. ch. 268B) and child care.
This is a policy position; the affordability measures described would be set in legislation and budget. Corrections: campaign@madgettformn.com.