Public Policy Advocacy

Midwest Health Center for Women is committed to advocating for reproductive rights, women's rights, and human rights. We believe the right for a woman to make her own decisions regarding her body and her life belong to her alone. A decision to have an abortion should remain only between a woman and her partner, her doctor or her spiritual confidant. The government has no business weighing in on this extremely private and personal matter.

The majority of Minnesotans are pro-choice.** Yet our state legislature has been taken over by the anti-choice movement. This minority has framed the dialogue and has won public opinion battles on such issues as the so-called "woman's right to know" and "partial birth abortion," both of which have done nothing more than to place hardships on women seeking abortions and clinics that provide them. MHCW retains a lobbyist to voice the needs of Minnesota women at the State Capitol.

Every year both the federal government and the Minnesota legislature attempt to further limit YOUR RIGHTS to safe, accessible health care. The next move by our anti-choice Governor and the anti-choice controlled House of Representatives will likely be another attempt to change our State Constitution. And now, since the 2002 elections, we no longer have a solid pro-choice majority in either body of the legislature to fight off these attacks on women's privacy and health care.

Click on our Advocacy Initiatives listed above to learn about what Midwest Health Center for Women is doing to advocate for your rights or Click here to receive regular updates and learn how you can help or volunteer.

** Based on a Gallup Poll from January 2001 and a Star Tribune Minnesota Poll released in January 2003.