Politics & Government
‘Arrest For Murder’: MN Candidate Weighs In On Abortion, Roe V. Wade
Walter Hudson said the Supreme Court's ruling to undo federal abortion rights "stands as the greatest achievement in human liberty to date."
ST. MICHAEL, MN — Hours after the Supreme Court on Friday struck down abortion rights protected by Roe v. Wade since 1973, Republican state representative candidate Walter Hudson called for people to be charged with murder if they traveled to other states to receive abortion care.
Responding to a tweet showing companies that announced they will cover travel costs for employees who seek abortions in another state, Hudson said the “obvious solution” was to arrest them when they return and arrest company executives “for aiding and abetting.”
The obvious solution is arrest for murder upon return, and arrest of executives for aiding and abetting. https://t.co/uYHr5BB4UB
— Walter Hudson (@WalterHudson) June 25, 2022
Hudson, an Albertville City Council member, said the government should make “the risk of non-compliance inpalatable” for companies that help employees receive abortion care in other states and reiterated his beliefs about abortion in response to another Twitter user.
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“Causing a pregnancy is not a crime. Murder is,” Hudson tweeted. “Any man who murders would be prosecuted. This is pretty simple stuff.”
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Hudson also tweeted Friday that “Dick’s Sporting Goods desperately wants to kill children” after company executives said they will provide up to $4,000 for employees seeking abortion care.
In a video posted to his Twitter account Friday afternoon, Hudson compared June 24, 2022, with Jan. 1, 1863 — the date the Emancipation Proclamation took effect — and July 2, 1964, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law.
Those two historic days represent watershed moments in the expansion of rights, and Hudson said the Supreme Court’s ruling Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade and strike down federal abortion rights “stands as the greatest achievement in human liberty to date.”
“Roe v. Wade is gone. But our fight for life has only just begun. As with slavery and Jim Crow before it, we must pursue the complete abolition of abortion," Hudson said.
The Republican candidate, who called abortions a form of “elective birth control,” said he formed his views after listening to debates about abortion on a “very obscure” internet radio show.
“The whole [pro-choice argument] boiled down to: ‘I don’t want to have a child and therefore ought to be able to kill it.’ That’s it. Everything else is a red herring,” Hudson said, adding “the tragedies of rape and incest” are irrelevant in the debate about access to abortion and reproductive health care.
“When I am elected as your state representative, I will work tirelessly to abolish abortion in the state of Minnesota,” Hudson said. “We’re going to get it done for the same reasons that we freed the slaves and ended Jim Crow: because human dignity, human worth, human life simply must be protected.”
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Hudson will face Democrat Sonja Buckmeier in the Nov. 8 general election in the race to represent Minnesota’s House District 30A. The district includes St. Michael, Albertville, Hanover and Otsego.
Buckmeier could not be reached Monday for comment.
The Supreme Court's ruling means abortion will be illegal or almost impossible to receive in about half of U.S. states, including large swaths of the South, Midwest and Northern Plains.
The state of Minnesota has some of the most liberal abortion laws in the region and could become a destination for those seeking abortion services in the Midwest. Under Minnesota law, abortions are allowed during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Planned Parenthood's Minnesota clinics reminded anyone who calls, "No matter what you're hearing, abortion is still legal in our region."
But the organization’s locations in Wisconsin were forced to temporarily suspend all abortion services because of Friday's Supreme Court ruling, according to Tanya Atkinson, president of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin.
"Today, our daughters have less rights than their mothers, less rights than their grandmothers. This is absolutely unconscionable," Atkinson said.
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At least 26 states were expected to make it almost impossible for a woman to get an abortion, a procedure that was legal for her mother, grandmother or even great-grandmother, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights research and policy group.
Read the full Supreme Court decision here.
The court's ruling Friday to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and a subsequent case on fetal liability — Planned Parenthood v. Casey — was expected. Justice Samuel Alito Jr.'s majority opinion draft was leaked in May to Politico, signaling a seismic shift in abortion rights was coming.
Minnesota's four Democratic U.S. House representatives put out statements Friday slamming the ruling and calling it a government overreach into citizens' private health care decisions, while the state’s three Republican representatives celebrated the ruling as a victory for “the right to life.”
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