Michigan voters will decide in November if the state will legalize abortion or put into effect a 100-year-old law that outlaws abortion unless the mother is at risk.
Michigan’s elections panel voted 4-0 to add the Reproductive Freedom for All amendment to the ballot:
The Reproductive Freedom for All amendment would add an explicit right to seek abortions in Michigan, giving voters in the state a chance to decide whether to enshrine the right to the procedure in the state’s constitution after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark federal case that had safeguarded a national right to abortion for nearly half a century.Ahead of the vote, Reproductive Freedom for All attorney Steve Liedel told canvassers that hundreds of thousands of voters signed their names to the petition to give voters a chance to decide the fate of abortion rights in the state.”Their overwhelming message was and is that a proposed constitutional amendment is needed to ensure that Michigan women have the freedom to make highly personal decisions about abortion themselves instead of having politicians decide for them,” he said.
Abortion supporters gained 750,000 signatures to add the amendment to the ballot.
On August 30, the elections panel voted 2-2 along party lines on the amendment. The tie kept the amendment off the ballot.
The Republicans claimed that “spacing and formatting errors on the text canvassers presented to voters rendered the entire effort invalid.”
Then the Michigan Supreme Court voted 5-2 to certify the initiative for the ballot, overriding the tie. Chief Justice Bridget McCormack didn’t buy the Republicans’ explanation. The two justices who dissented wanted oral arguments:
Two justices dissented, arguing that the court should have held oral arguments on the case before issuing a ruling and that the claims raised by the challengers are legitimate.“It may have the right words in the right order,” Justice David Viviano said about the abortion rights petition, “but the lack of critical word spaces renders the remaining text much more difficult to read and comprehend.”
Abortion will also be on the ballots in California, Kentucky, Montana, and Vermont.
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