LANSING (WWJ) -- Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is asking the Michigan Supreme Court to decide if abortion rights are protected under the state constitution.
In a social media post Thursday morning, Whitmer said she's filing a lawsuit against prosecutors in 13 counties with abortion clinics. The goal is to strike down Michigan’s 1931 abortion law and keep abortion legal in Michigan.
Whitmer noted that Michigan's 176-year-old abortion ban still on the books is currently superseded by the decision in Roe versus Wade. However, if Roe is overturned in a few weeks, the ban goes into effect, she said, and abortion becomes illegal in Michigan. "If that happens, nearly 2.2 million women lose access to legal abortion. Let me put that into perspective for you. They lose their reproductive freedom, economic freedom, and are denied the right to chart their own destiny," the governor wrote, on Twitter.
No matter what happens with Roe, Whitmer said, "I am going to fight like hell and use all the tools I have as governor to ensure reproductive freedom is protected. Today in court, I represent all those who deserve the freedom to choose their own future. That’s a fight worth having."
The Associated Press reports Michigan is among eight U.S. states with an unenforced abortion ban that was enacted before the 1973 Roe V. Wade decision legalized abortion nationwide.
Under the 1931 Michigan law, performing an abortion in the state a felony. The law reads as follows:
“Administering drugs, etc., with intent to procure miscarriage — Any person who shall willfully administer to any pregnant woman any medicine, drug, substance or thing whatever, or shall employ any instrument or other means whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of any such woman, unless the same shall have been necessary to preserve the life of such woman, shall be guilty of a felony, and in case the death of such pregnant woman be thereby produced, the offense shall be deemed manslaughter.” (Read the law HERE).
According to the governor's office, this is first time a governor has filed a lawsuit to protect a woman's right to abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court signaled its recent willingness to consider overturning or circumscribing the federal right to an abortion.
Specifically, the lawsuit asks the court to recognize a constitutional right to an abortion under the Due Process Clause of the Michigan Constitution. It also asks the court to stop enforcement of the 1931 Michigan abortion ban. The abortion ban violates Michigan’s due process clause, which provides a right to privacy and bodily autonomy that is violated by the state’s near-total criminal ban of abortion. It also violates Michigan’s Equal Protection Clause due to the way the ban denies women equal rights because the law was adopted to reinforce antiquated notions of the proper role for women in society.
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Discussing this issue in the past, Whitmer said that abortion rights today are supported by a "significant majority" of Michiganders. Earlier calls by the governor to repeal the 1931 law has gone nowhere in Michigan's Republican-controlled Legislature.
In a statement released Thursday, seven Democratic county prosecutors who were named in the lawsuit pledged to not enforce Michigan's anti-abortion law.
“We cannot and will not support criminalizing reproductive freedom or creating unsafe, untenable situations for health care providers and those who seek abortions in our communities,” said the elected prosecutors in Wayne, Oakland, Genesee, Washtenaw, Ingham, Kalamazoo and Marquette counties. "Instead, we will continue to dedicate our limited resources towards the prosecution of serious crimes and the pursuit of justice for all.”
The other six prosecutors named in the lawsuit are Republicans
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