The latest front in the U.S. war over abortion was waged last week during an idyllic summer evening on Michigan’s lakeshore.
Outside a park where kids ate waffle cones and hundreds of people listened to a concert in the band shell, volunteers collected signatures in support of placing a measure on the November ballot that would amend the state’s constitution to safeguard abortion rights.
Their task took on new urgency after the U.S. Supreme Court on June 24 overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that had legalized abortion nationwide and left the issue to individual states to regulate.
In Michigan, where opinion polls show the majority of people support abortion rights, Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer filed a lawsuit to invalidate a 1931 state law that makes abortions a felony and establish a state constitutional right to abortion. A court has temporarily blocked that law from being enforced, but the Republicans who control the state legislature want to keep the ban on the books or enact a new one.
Political tensions in Michigan over the future of abortion could be a harbinger of what may play out in a handful of other U.S. states with a similar dynamic – an electorate that favors abortion rights governed by a legislature determined to restrict them.
Whitmer has made protecting abortion rights a centerpiece of her re-election campaign this year, saying she can veto any attempt by the legislature to pass a new ban.
“This could very quickly go from a state where abortion is safe and legal to one that makes it illegal with no exceptions,” Whitmer said in an interview on Friday. “That’s a very real threat.”
Whitmer said she would promote the ballot measure if her own efforts to legalize abortion fail in the courts.
The coalition of abortion-rights and progressive groups behind the petition drive face a July 11 deadline to amass about 425,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot. As she gathered signatures outside the park in St. Clair Shores last week, volunteer Deborah Karcher, 46, said direct action is the best way to save reproductive rights.
“This is the will of the people,” Karcher said. “Even if you don’t agree with this, let’s get it on the ballot. Let the people decide.”
Opponents of the ballot measure, including religious and anti-abortion groups, also have mobilized, saying the language of the amendment would open the door to late-term abortions and block parental notification when minors seek the procedure.
