Planned Parenthood just killed a hard-fought effort by hundreds of thousands of Michiganders to protect unborn babies from brutal dismemberment abortions.
On Tuesday, Right to Life of Michigan announced the defeat of the Michigan Values Life petition drive. Pro-life leaders said they will not challenge a state Bureau of Elections decision arguing that they did not collect enough valid signatures for the dismemberment ban to qualify for the ballot.
“We know we submitted signatures from more than 340,047 registered voters,” said Right to Life of Michigan President Barbara Listing. “It is tragic that children will continue to be dismembered because we lost just enough signatures due to errors and petition damage like small tears and stains.”
She said they plan to focus their efforts on the November election.
In December, the Michigan Values Life coalition submitted 379,418 signatures to the Michigan Bureau of Elections to initiate legislation to ban dismemberment abortions.
However, the Planned Parenthood abortion chain challenged the validity of the signatures in a lawsuit, and the state Bureau of Elections agreed that there were enough invalid signatures to disqualify the petition.
Listing praised the thousands of pro-life volunteers who helped collect signatures and educate the public about the brutality of dismemberment abortions on unborn babies.
“Our volunteers did an excellent job, but the bulk of the errors were things beyond our control, specifically people not knowing their voter registration status or forgetting they already signed the petition,” she said. “Because we were about 20,000 signatures short of our goal of 400,000, we left room for Planned Parenthood to pick us apart so they can continue profiting from dismembering babies.”
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She said the effort was still well worth it because they educated more than 400,000 people about the truth about abortion.
“This was our first attempt to end the dismemberment of babies in Michigan, and we will continue working until we end this form of violence and protect the lives of every unborn child,” Listing said.
Meanwhile, abortion activists claimed the defeat means Michiganders do not support dismemberment abortions.
“Good news! Anti-choice orgs in Michigan fail to get signatures they need to put abortion ban on the ballot this year,” Ilyse Hogue of NARAL Pro-Choice America responded on Twitter. “Michiganders, like the rest of the country, believe in legal access to abortion. Anti-choice movement generally ignores popular opinion. This time they couldn’t.”
But the evidence is against abortion activists. Michigan has a pro-life legislature, elected by the people, that passed the dismemberment abortion ban, and pro-life advocates collected nearly 400,000 signatures on the petition drive – a massive number that indicates state residents are passionate about protecting unborn babies from brutal dismemberment abortions.
What’s more, polls consistently show that Americans support restrictions on abortion. In June, Gallup found 55% of Americans take a pro-life position on abortion wanting all (21%) or almost all 39% abortions made illegal. A 2015 poll by Communication Concepts also found strong public support for a dismemberment abortion ban, including 64% of women.
In 2019, Michigan lawmakers passed bills to ban the brutal practice on unborn babies, but pro-abortion Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer vowed to veto the legislation. The voter petition would have allowed the law to pass without Whitmer’s signature.
A dismemberment abortion, or dilation and evacuation (D&E), is a procedure in which the abortionist dilates the woman’s cervix and then uses steel instruments to dismember and extract the baby from the uterus. Typically, the unborn baby is pulled apart limb from limb while his or her heart is still beating. Dismemberment is a common second-trimester abortion method. In the second trimester, unborn babies are nearly fully formed, and strong scientific evidence indicates they can feel pain.
In 2018, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reported 1,908 dismemberment abortions.
Eleven states have passed laws to ban dismemberment abortions: Ohio, Kansas, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Kentucky and North Dakota. However, the abortion industry is challenging many of them in court.
