Michigan’s proposed constitutional amendment would create a right to “reproductive freedom,” including abortion access through fetal viability, which is roughly 24 weeks. Proponents needed to gather 425,059 signatures. They submitted about 750,000, which news reports say is the most ever for a Michigan initiative. Official certification to appear on the November ballot could come from a state board Wednesday.
The context is that Michigan has a 1931 law that broadly bans inducing miscarriage, with an exception “to preserve the life of such woman,” but not for victims of rape or incest. The law is on hold as court challenges play out, but it doesn’t seem to be consonant with public opinion in 2022, even in red states like Kansas, to say nothing of purple ones like Michigan…
[V]oters might instead be given an all-or-nothing choice: approve the proposed constitutional amendment to codify the line at 24 weeks, or risk the enforcement of the 1931 law. For the pro-life side, this political prospect might be even worse than the lay of the land in Kansas. There the threat was the unknown, and voters decided against giving state lawmakers the power to legislate freely on abortion.
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