Supreme Court Won’t Revive Michigan Ban on Partial-Birth Abortions

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jan 5, 2008   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Supreme Court Won’t Revive Michigan Ban on Partial-Birth Abortions Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 5,
2008

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The Supreme Court decided on Monday that it would not revive a Michigan ban on partial-birth abortions despite a ruling last April upholding the national ban on the gruesome abortion procedure. The Michigan ban took a different approach in banning the abortion method than the federal ban.

The first time the nation’s high court dealt with partial-birth abortions in 2000, it overturned a Nebraska ban worded similarly to the federal ban it eventually upheld last year.

Between the two decisions, a couple of states, including Michigan, tried a new approach for a partial-birth abortion ban that would be upheld as constitutional.

Michigan legislators, after getting over 400,000 petitions from residents of the state, went back and approved a new ban that included a definition of the birthing of a baby and saying that the abortion procedure amounted to infanticide.

The ban had previously gone to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, which said it was reluctant to overturn the law, but indicated that Michigan legislators could have used other bans as models, such as an Ohio ban that it had already upheld.

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox appealed that decision to the Supreme Court.

The court issued its ruling after the Eastern District Court declared Michigan’s statute unconstitutional in September 2006.

Federal courts struck down attempts by Michigan lawmakers to ban partial-birth abortions in 1997 and 2001, so pro-life advocates obtained the signatures of 460,000 people for a ban with this new language.

The Northland Family Planning abortion business filed the lawsuit against the Legal Birth Definition Act and sought an injunction preventing the measure from being enforced. The ACLU of Michigan, the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights in New York, and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America joined the case.

Related web sites:
Right to Life of Michigan – https://www.rtl.org
Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox –
https://www.michigan.gov/ag