(LifeSiteNews) — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison called the services offered by life-saving pregnancy resource centers “misleading” and “potentially deceptive.” However, his office is blocking public access to records that would show whether anyone has ever actually complained about them.
LifeSiteNews filed a public records request for all complaints issued against pregnancy help centers between May 5, 2024, and May 5, 2026, covering a full two-year period. LifeSiteNews sought to find out if people were actually complaining about the centers, which provide free diapers, car seats, counseling, and other supportive services to moms and families in need.
After all, in August 2022, Ellison urged Minnesotans to file consumer complaints against the pregnancy centers.
“As Minnesota’s chief consumer advocate and legal officer, I want to alert Minnesotans that crisis pregnancy centers often do not offer the services they claim to offer, and that the information about abortion and contraception they offer may be inaccurate or misleading,” the Democrat stated in a news release.
But Ellison’s dedication to informing the public may have stopped with that news release, as his office is refusing to turn over any complaints, citing a controversial records standard.
“To the extent that any responsive consumer complaint data exist, they would be classified as private data on individuals under Minn. Stat. § 13.65, subd. 1(c),” the data practices team within Ellison’s office wrote. “See also Energy Policy Advocates v. Ellison,” referencing a 2022 Minnesota Supreme Court decision.
That standard comes from a narrow ruling in 2022. Ellison sought to block the release of communications between his office and private attorneys who focus on climate change issues.
For 40 years, the standard in state law had been that private data only applies to individuals, not to companies and non-profits and government entities, according to an expert who spoke to LifeSiteNews.
“In the past, if you requested that data, you’d be able to get the data as it pertains to organizations, but they’d have to redact out individual identifying information about persons,” Matt Ehling told LifeSiteNews in a phone interview. He is a documentarian in Minnesota and treasurer for Minnesotans for Open Government.
He said the Minnesota Supreme Court decision remains controversial but limited only to the attorney general’s office.
“Even if you read their opinion, (the majority) admit … the problems this would cause for the entire open records law … so they just kept their opinion to the attorney general’s office,” Ehling told LifeSiteNews on Wednesday.
“So, for some reason now, in the attorney general’s office, private data on individuals means data on individuals and everything else, which makes absolutely no textual sense,” Ehling said.
His group has been pushing for a legislative fix. In 2025, Minnesotans for Open Government called on the legislature to reverse the decision.
“Permitting the public to see the end results of government investigations allows individual citizens (as well as the press) to examine key governmental actions, and to determine whether they were properly handled or not,” Ehling argued in written testimony.
He noted that Don Gemberling, a board member of the government watchdog group, helped create the original statute and previously directed the data practices team for Minnesota.
Concluding his remarks to LifeSiteNews, Ehling said, “It makes to us absolutely no sense that the most powerful public law office in the state and the state’s chief law enforcement officer can operate with a lesser degree of transparency than county attorneys’ offices,” he said.
The attorney general’s office can also shield more records “than police departments where a lot more data about their operations is public than at the attorney general’s office currently.”
LifeSiteNews contacted the attorney general’s office twice in the past week, asking how many complaints were filed during the May 2024 to May 2026 period or any other time that the office had records for. LifeSiteNews also asked for any actions taken by the attorney general’s office against the centers such as filing lawsuits.
Press secretary Brian Evans did not respond to either request for comment.
Massachusetts also warned women – and had zero complaints
While Minnesota continues to hide data on how many, if any, people actually complained against pregnancy centers, Massachusetts previously gave LifeSiteNews the full accounting: zero.
Like Ellison, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey also urged the state’s residents to file complaints against pregnancy centers. Despite spending at least $1 million on the campaign, no one actually complained.
LifeSiteNews requested any civil rights complaints filed against pro-life pregnancy centers from June 10, 2024, when Healey announced the effort, through Jan. 6, 2025. Healey’s “education campaign” aimed at “highlighting the dangers and potential harm of anti-abortion centers.”
Those findings in 2025 are similar to what a state pro-life leader has found from her own public record requests, LifeSiteNews previously reported.
There has rarely, if ever, been complaints against the pro-life centers, according to Massachusetts Citizens for Life.
“In six public records requests filed by Massachusetts Citizens for Life, no results indicated complaints of merit against our pregnancy resource centers during their four-decade history,” Myrna Flynn, president of the pro-life group, told LifeSiteNews in January 2025.
This article was originally published by LifeSiteNews.
Matt Lamb
Matt has previously worked at Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action and Turning Point USA. While in college, he wrote for The College Fix as well as his college newspaper, The Loyola Phoenix. He holds a B.A. from Loyola University-Chicago and an M.A. from the University of Nebraska-Omaha. He lives in northwest Indiana with his family.
