Michigan Live reports, Judge grants injunction barring county enforcement of Michigan’s abortion ban:
Michigan’s abortion ban will continue to not be enforceable by county prosecutors for the foreseeable future after an Oakland County judge issued a preliminary injunction Friday, Aug. 19.
Circuit Court Judge Jacob Cunningham sided with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, ruling that the 1931 law is contrary to notions of due process, equal protection and bodily autonomy. He said the state successfully demonstrated “a concerning and cognizable constitutional crisis as it relates to the medical profession and the women and persons capable of bearing children.”
Cunningham’s ruling came after two days of testimony in an evidentiary hearing in Whitmer’s lawsuit against 13 county prosecutors. The judge found all three of the state’s medical witnesses credible in their testimony, while dismissing the defendant’s two medical witnesses as biased and not credible.
“Though the court appreciates both sides of this debate are passionate in their convictions, by not issuing an injunction today, the court would send the health care system into crisis, the extreme cost of which would then be put on the women of our great state,” Cunningham said.
Noting that voters could decide on the fate of Michigan’s abortion services this November via ballot initiative, Cunningham set a pretrial conference for Nov. 21 and said a trial would be held no later than Feb. 19, 2023, if needed. In the meantime, county prosecutors and the state of Michigan cannot enforce the 91-year-old law.
Related: Michigan abortion rights, voting access ballot decisions expected in August:
Michigan election officials are on track to decide by the end of August whether a proposed constitutional amendment to guarantee abortion rights should make the November ballot, state elections director Jonathan Brater said Thursday.
Brater told the Board of State Canvassers, which certifies ballot initiatives, that Bureau of Elections staff “are making good progress” on reviewing the record 754,000 signatures submitted last Monday by Reproductive Freedom for All.
The same also goes for Promote the Vote 2022, Brater said, a proposed constitutional amendment to expand voting rights and access. PTV submitted 670,000 signatures, only about 1,000 shy of the previous record.
Each constitutional amendment needs 425,059 valid signatures to make the November ballot. That means the abortion amendment would need 44% of its signatures thrown out to fail, and the voting amendment 37%.
Brater said the election bureau is on track to offer a ballot recommendation to state canvassers ahead of their Aug. 31 meeting.
The deadline for a decision on the constitutional amendments is Sept. 9.
Shortly after Friday’s hearing wrapped up, Gov. Whitmer said she was grateful for the injunction “that will protect women and ensure nurses and doctors can keep caring for their patients without fear of prosecution.”
“The lack of legal clarity about abortion in Michigan has already caused far too much confusion for women who deserve certainty about their health care, and hardworking medical providers who should be able to do their jobs without worrying about being thrown behind bars,” Whitmer said in a prepared statement.
Attorney General Dana Nessel said “maintaining access to reproductive healthcare is absolutely necessary for the health and well-being of women and it is our duty to ensure that access for the roughly two million women of reproductive age who call Michigan home.”
Michigan’s 1931 abortion ban prohibits the willful administration to any pregnant woman of any medicine, drug, substance or thing to procure a miscarriage. Anyone who does so, except to save a mother’s life, is guilty of a felony.
Over the course of the two-day hearing, parties opposed to the law argued it’s vague and outdated, and puts both patients and health care professionals at risk. They said the law violates Michigan’s due process and equal protection clauses.
The fate of abortion access in Michigan has been up in the air since late June when [a radical Republican] U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that there is no constitutional right to an abortion. The ruling overturned nearly 50 years of precedent and left the question of abortion legality up to the individual states.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer filed a lawsuit asking the court to determine if Michigan’s 1931 abortion ban violated the state constitution. She has since followed up by asking the Michigan Supreme Court on multiple occasions to immediately take up the case.
Similarly, Planned Parenthood of Michigan filed a lawsuit against the state’s attorney general.
Michigan Court of Claims Judge Elizabeth Gleicher issued an abortion ban injunction on May 17, which appeared to temporarily stop enforcement of the 1931 law. But the Court of Appeals weighed in, noting that the injunction didn’t affect county prosecutors.
In response, Whitmer asked Judge Cunningham to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent local enforcement. The judge agreed on Aug. 3, and set this week’s hearing to determine whether to impose a longer-lasting preliminary injunction.
Becker, Jarzynka, and Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido said they would enforce the abortion ban, prior to the injunction. Their counsel argued that it’s their duty to enforce the state’s laws.
In response, Cunningham suggested they “focus their attention and resources in the meantime to investigation and prosecution of criminal sexual conduct, homicide, arson, child and elder abuse, animal cruelty and other violent horrific crimes that we see in our society.”
Other prosecutors have sided with Whitmer’s efforts, including Washtenaw County’s Eli Savit, Genesee County’s David Leyton, Ingham County’s Carol Siemon, Kalamazoo County’s Jeff Getting, Marquette County’s Matt Wiese, Oakland County’s Karen McDonald, and Wayne County’s Kym Worthy.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has said her department will continue to pursue all legal options to ensure reproductive healthcare remains available in the state.
Note: Arizona has an anti-abortion law from its first territorial legislature in 1864, which was later recodified after Arizona became a state. That antiquated law is also being challenged in court.
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UPDATE: Michigan uses a Board of Elections – 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans, no tiebreaker – to decide what goes on the ballot. It leads to partisan obstruction denying the will of the voters to make their own laws, like this: “Michigan elections panel deadlocks, leaving abortion rights proposal off ballot”, https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2022/08/31/michigan-abortion-rights-proposal-off-ballot-for-now/65466518007/
Michigan’s elections panel deadlocked along partisan lines Wednesday on certifying an abortion rights measure for this fall’s ballot that proposed adding an explicit right to seek the procedure in the state.
Canvassers deadlocked on a separate constitutional amendment proposed by Promote the Vote that would establish early voting and preempt GOP efforts to change Michigan election law in the wake of the 2020 election.
The impasse leaves the measure off the ballot.
But a spokesperson for Reproductive Freedom for All said the group plans to file an appeal asking the Michigan Supreme Court to put the proposed constitutional amendment before voters as election officials prepare to send out ballots next month.
Like Reproductive Freedom for All, Promote the Vote also plans to pursue legal action asking a court to put the amendment before voters this fall.
That impasse also leaves that proposal off the ballot for now, but organizers have said they plan to pursue legal action and expressed confidence the amendment will come before voters this fall.
-So now the rights of voters will be decided by the Michigan Supreme Court.