Pro-life advocates sue to overturn Michigan’s pro-abortion constitutional amendment
Michigan pro-life advocates, including Right to Life of Michigan and state lawmakers, have asked federal courts to overturn the state constitutional amendment that voters approved two years ago , which defines abortion as a “right.”
According to Detroit newsthe legal filing was submitted on Wednesday regarding the Proposition 3, which will be on the ballot in November 2022. Voters are asked to approve pro-abortion language to be added to the state constitution.
In the lawsuit, Right to Life of Michigan, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Crossroads Care Center, as well as State Sen. Joe Bellion (R), and Rep. Gina Johnson (R) and Luke Meerman (R), asked to permanently block the amendment.
They argue that the amendment allows unregulated abortion throughout pregnancy and repeals the parental consent law regarding abortions of minors. The lawsuit alleges that the voter-approved language creates an “extraordinary right” to abortion, inconsistent with the First and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution as well as constitutional guarantees of a “republican form of government.” The 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection of the law to pre-born children.
“Never in the history of our country has there been such a super-right, immune from all legislative action, created by a popular vote outside the checks and balances of a republican form of government,” the filing said.
After the measure was passed on the 2021 ballot, the language became “Reproductive rights freedom” constitutional amendment. It states, “Every individual has the fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which includes the right to make and exercise decisions regarding all matters related to pregnancy, including but not limited to prenatal care, delivery, postpartum care of childbirth, contraception, sterilization, abortion care, miscarriage management, and infertility care.”
In other words, the right to create and destroy people at will.
Right to Life of Michigan President Barbara Listing announced the lawsuit at an event at the state Capitol on Wednesday where pro-life activists gathered.
“The provisions asserted unconstitutional under federal law threaten legal protections for pregnant women seeking health care, the rights of physicians to care for patients, and the parents’ rights are already under attack on many fronts,” Listing said in a statement. “At issue is the widespread disenfranchisement of both Michigan voters and the authority of the legislature in the days and years to come.”
The pro-abortion Gov. State Rep. Gretchen Whitmer, who ran for re-election on a platform of protecting abortion, intends to defeat the lawsuit.
“It shouldn’t be lost on people that right-wing organizations and radical Republicans in the Michigan Legislature are cherry picking courts to try again to repeal a constitutionally guaranteed right because they can’t win with the voters,” said Whitmer’s press secretary. Stacey LaRouche.
