For more than 100 minutes on Thursday, Democrats and Republicans in the Minnesota House of Representatives engaged in a heated floor debate over whether to restore a state-funded grant program for pregnancy resource centers.
But the DFL House caucus’ top-ranking legislator, Melissa Hortman, wasn’t one of those to speak up on the bill, HF25, that has advanced in the chamber over the last month.
Hortman and 65 other Democrats ultimately sank the bill on Thursday evening, when it failed by one vote to gain the 68 votes it needed to pass. All 67 Republican House members voted for the bill.
An 11th-term Democrat from Brooklyn Park, Hortman is one of the longest-tenured members of the House. She is one of a handful of current legislators who voted “yes” on a bill in 2005 that created the “Positive Alternatives Grant Program,” which provided state-funded grant opportunities to pregnancy resource centers. Then-Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed the bill into law after it passed in the House by a vote of 112-17 and in the Senate by a vote of 53-11.
Well more than half of the Democrats in the House and Senate at the time supported the bill—including Hortman and another current legislator, Rep. Tina Liebling of Rochester.
For the next 17 years the grant program was available to pregnancy resource centers across the state. That changed in 2023 when the DFL-controlled House and Senate inserted a provision in a health finance omnibus bill that eliminated the program. Gov. Tim Walz signed that legislation into law just a few days later.
But for the last month, as the GOP has held a one-seat majority in the House, Rep. Natalie Zeleznikar, R-Fredenberg Township, has been pushing a stand-alone bill to restore the “Positive Alternatives Grant Program,” to the tune of $4 million annually that would be available to the 90-some pregnancy resource centers and maternity homes across the state.
“For 17 years, before I came here, maybe before some of you came here, but we do have members that were here, on both sides of the aisle, when this was a bipartisan discussion,” Zeleznikar said. “And I think it’s important we return to that same spirit of bipartisanship, because that’s really what Minnesotans want.”
Neither Hortman or Liebling—who supported the program 20 years ago—spoke to the bill during the floor debate on Thursday. But both pressed their red “no” buttons on HF25. Alpha News reached out to Hortman and Liebling this week to ask them what has changed about the grant program they once supported. Neither replied to requests for comment.
On Thursday, those Democrats who did speak up in opposition to the bill based most of their rationale on the allegation Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocacy organizations have pushed in recent years that pregnancy resource centers exist to “trick” women into not having abortions.
“Make no mistake, these centers fake being women’s health clinics to fool women into walking in,” said Rep. Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis, as he made the case that pregnancy resource centers “falsely present themselves as health care providers … and then provide medically inaccurate information to the individuals they’ve tricked.”
Some of Long’s DFL colleagues made the same case, alleging that many pregnancy resource centers are out to deceive women into not considering an abortion, as opposed to providing support and resources for women facing pregnancy and motherhood.
Rep. Leigh Finke, DFL-St. Paul, said that pregnancy resource centers “don’t need our money,” especially in the face of a looming $6 billion budget deficit, and then proffered the idea that they are “part of an extremist, patriarchal, right-wing religious agenda.”
Minnesota Democrat Leigh Finke describes pregnancy resource centers as "part of an extremist, patriarchal, right-wing religious agenda." pic.twitter.com/jnYLZ3tJUY
— Anthony Gockowski (@AntGockowski) March 14, 2025
In response, Rep. Kristin Robbins, R-Maple Grove, reminded her colleagues that Planned Parenthood centers across Minnesota receive more than $24 million annually in state funding.
“I just can’t abide by the villainization of these folks,” added Rep. Peggy Scott, R-Andover. “I think it’s wrong and I think it’s ugly what has been said here today,” said Scott, who noted that pregnancy resource centers she’s visited provide a number of supportive services to expectant mothers and to those with newborns and infants.
“Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding has increased by 43 percent since 2010,” Scott said. “Maybe we should think about not giving them funding, Rep. Finke. It doesn’t sound like they need it.”
Hank Long
Hank Long is a journalism and communications professional whose writing career includes coverage of the Minnesota legislature, city and county governments and the commercial real estate industry. Hank received his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota, where he studied journalism, and his law degree at the University of St. Thomas. The Minnesota native lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and four children. His dream is to be around when the Vikings win the Super Bowl.
