Michigan voters may be about to approve an abortion law that would be among the most permissive in the country. If they do, the reason will be a combination of proponents’ dishonesty and opponents’ negligence.
The end of Roe v. Wade has yet to change anything in the Wolverine State. A 1931 law, still on the books but unenforceable under Roe, prohibited abortion except to save the life of the mother. Gov.
Gretchen Whitmer
and Planned Parenthood both challenged it in pre-emptive April lawsuits. Two courts granted their petitions for an injunction against enforcing the law, and a state judge struck down the law in September.
Meantime, a group called Reproductive Freedom for All gathered signatures for an initiative to amend the state constitution. “It could be a blueprint for many other states,” Sen.
Elizabeth Warren
cheered in June.
Proposal 3 is styled as a restoration of Roe, but the language goes further. The amendment’s opening clause provides that “every individual has a fundamental right to reproductive freedom,” including “abortion care.” The term “individual”—not “woman” or “adult”—could preclude laws requiring parental consent for minors seeking abortions, says former Michigan Solicitor General
John Bursch.
Proponents deny that. “When Roe v. Wade was the law of the land, courts upheld restrictions on minors’ ability to obtain abortions,” writes University of Michigan law professor
Leah Litman
in an op-ed. “That’s the law that Proposal 3 restores—the protections of Roe. It’s that simple.”
Yet Ms. Litman’s reading contradicts the proposal’s text. It says the right to abortion can’t be infringed absent a “compelling state interest achieved by the least restrictive means.” That’s the same standard that applied under Roe between 1973 and 1992, when Planned Parenthood v. Casey changed it to an “undue burden” test.
But Proposal 3 rewrites the standard: An interest is compelling “only if it is for the limited purpose of protecting the health of an individual seeking care, consistent with accepted clinical standards of practice and evidence based medicine, and does not infringe on that individual’s autonomous decision-making.”
“Those are connected at the hip,” Mr. Bursch…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at RSSOpinion…