Michigan Voters Will Decide Abortion Rights As Court Approves Ballot Measure

Topline

Michigan residents will vote on whether the state should protect abortion rights in the November midterm elections, as the Michigan Supreme Court ruled Thursday to approve a ballot measure on reproductive rights after the Board of State Canvassers didn’t—potentially safeguarding abortion access in the state before a ban on the procedure could go into effect.

Pro-abortion rights supporters gather outside the Michigan State Capitol during a “Restore Roe” … [+] rally in Lansing, on September 7.

AFP via Getty Images

Key Facts

The Michigan Supreme Court directed the Board of State Canvassers to approve the abortion ballot initiative by Friday.

The Reproductive Freedom for All ballot measure would amend the Michigan Constitution to state there’s a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom,” which includes both abortion rights and contraception, prenatal care, postpartum care, miscarriage care, childbirth, infertility care and sterilization.

The ballot measure bars the state from punishing people for performing an abortion, though it does allow the procedure to be restricted after the fetus is viable (except when medically necessary), as was allowed under Roe v. Wade.

Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers deadlocked in a 2-2 vote on whether to approve the amendment last week, which stopped the measure from making the ballot and left it up to the court to decide.

The dispute over its approval hinged on formatting errors in the ballot proposal that left some words without spaces between them—which opponents of the initiative said made it into “gibberish”—which led the board’s Republican members to reject the ballot measure, even though its Democratic members argued they didn’t have the power to do so.

The court agreed the board did not have the power to reject the proposal, since it had the number of signatures required to make the ballot.

Crucial Quote

The board members who rejected the ballot measure “would disenfranchise millions of Michiganders not because they believe the many thousands of Michiganders who signed the proposal were confused by it, but because they think they have identified a technicality that allows them to do so, a game of gotcha gone very bad,” Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack wrote in a concurring opinion Thursday. “What a sad marker of the times.”

Surprising Fact

The abortion ballot measure has been criticized for not having spaces between words, an apparent error that was introduced after the board asked the group behind the petition to add an extra “the.” An analysis by Bridge Michigan found those spaces do, in fact, exist, but are just hard to see based on how it was formatted in Adobe InDesign, however.

Big Number

More than 750,000. That’s the number of people that signed a petition in favor of putting the abortion rights initiative on the ballot, which marked a record number of signatures. Only 596,379 were ultimately approved by the state Bureau of Elections, the Associated Press reports, but that’s far still higher than the approximately 425,000 signatures required.

What To Watch For

What will happen with abortion rights in Michigan. The ballot measure passing will protect abortion rights and nullify a 1931 abortion ban that would outlaw the procedure in the state, which courts have so far blocked officials from enforcing. The Michigan Court of Claims struck down the law as unconstitutional on Wednesday, but the case is likely to be appealed, meaning it’s still possible for a court to reverse the law and put the law back into effect in the future if the ballot measure doesn’t succeed. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) is also up for reelection in November, and the Republican-controlled legislature could enact new abortion restrictions if she’s not reelected and can’t veto their legislation.

Key Background

Michigan is one of five states that have abortion rights-related ballot measures in November. California and Vermont also have ballot initiatives that will add language protecting abortion rights to their state constitutions, while Kentucky’s amendment will explicitly not protect abortion rights if approved. Montana’s ballot measure is more narrowly focused on granting legal rights to infants who are “born alive,” including those born after attempted abortions. Kansas’ abortion rights ballot measure was voted on in August, marking the first time voters weighed in on abortion rights after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The landslide vote in support of protecting reproductive rights there has made abortion rights advocates look to ballot measures as an attractive way to shore up abortion rights even in GOP-controlled states, the Washington Post reports, as polling indicates Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to banning the procedure. Pro- and anti-abortion rights advocates in such states as Arizona, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Dakota and South Dakota have said they’re working on abortion-related initiatives that could be on ballots in 2023 and 2024.