Roe v Wade Protest

On June 24, 2022, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Minneapolis within hours of the U.S. Supreme Court issuing its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion. The march moved through downtown and along University Avenue toward the University of Minnesota campus.

Roe v. Wade had stood for nearly fifty years, establishing that the Constitution protected a person's right to abortion. The 6–3 Dobbs ruling ended that protection, returning authority over abortion regulation entirely to individual states. In practical terms, the decision immediately changed the legal landscape in much of the country, with trigger laws and near-total bans taking effect in more than a dozen states within days.

Minnesota's position was distinct. The state's own Supreme Court had affirmed a constitutional right to abortion in the 1995 case Doe v. Gomez, meaning the Dobbs ruling did not alter access within the state. Organizers referenced that distinction during the march, and Minnesota soon became a destination for patients from neighboring states where bans had taken hold.

The Minneapolis march drew students from the University of Minnesota alongside residents from across the Twin Cities, with groups including Students for a Democratic Society among those carrying hand-painted banners through the downtown corridor. It was one of dozens of simultaneous demonstrations held in cities nationwide that same afternoon, part of a coordinated national response to the ruling that continued in the weeks that followed.