Whitmer cited Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a pending U.S. Supreme Court case that could alter or abolish legal abortion precedent, as a reason for the lawsuit.
“If Roe is overturned, abortion could become illegal in Michigan in nearly any circumstance … This is no longer theoretical: it is reality. That’s why I am filing a lawsuit and using my executive authority to urge the Michigan Supreme Court to immediately resolve whether Michigan’s state constitution protects the right to abortion,” Whitmer said in a statement.
Michigan adopted a law criminalizing abortion, except when necessary to save the life of the mother, in 1931.
The law has not been enforced since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, but the Michigan Court of Appeals found in 1997 that there is not a right to abortion in the state constitution.
A statement from Whitmer’s office said the lawsuit asks the Michigan Supreme Court “to recognize a constitutional right to an abortion under the Due Process Clause of the Michigan Constitution.”
It asserted that the state law on abortion “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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