Michigan is moving closer to passing a law that protects unborn babies from brutal dismemberment abortions.
WKAR reports state Republican leaders said they are ready to pass the legislation as soon as the state Bureau of Elections confirms the signatures on the voter petition.
Last the spring, 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 allow the law to pass without Whitmer’s signature.
The petition requires 340,047 valid voter signatures, and the Michigan Values Life Coalition submitted more than 379,000 to the state in December. Once the signatures are validated, the legislature must vote again on the legislation to pass it.
Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield said he is confident that they will pass the pro-life bill, according to the local news. Both the state House and Senate have Republican majorities.
“This is an issue that we feel strongly about, and should the petitions and signatures be authorized and submitted to us, we fully intend on taking it up again and passing it out of the House chamber,” Chatfield said.
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 while his or her heart is still beating.
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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.
Republicans almost certainly will pass the dismemberment ban, but pro-abortion Democrats in the legislature said they will continue to fight it anyway.
“For 47 years now, we’ve had the ability to make these decisions for ourselves and it’s just not right and we’ll be fighting hard against it,” said House Democratic Leader Christine Greig.
The Planned Parenthood abortion chain may sue to block the law after it passes.
“In every other state where this policy has been challenged, it’s been ruled unconstitutional,” said Angela Vasquez-Giroux, spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan, previously. “We have every reason to believe that’s what would happen here, and we will use every tool available to us to stop it from hurting Michiganders.”
Currently, 11 states ban dismemberment abortions: Ohio, Kansas, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Kentucky and North Dakota. In April, a judge blocked Ohio from enforcing its law.
