Lansing, Michigan – A Michigan judge on Friday blocked county attorneys from enforcing the state’s 1931 ban on abortion for the foreseeable future after two days of witness testimony from abortion experts, providers and the state’s chief medical officer.
The ruling comes after the state appeals court said earlier this month that county prosecutors were not covered by the May order and could impose the ban after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the US Supreme Court.
“The harm to the bodies of women and persons of childbearing potential in failure to issue an injunction could not be more real, obvious, present and serious to court,” Oakland County Judge Jacob Cunningham said during his ruling on Friday.
David Kalman, an attorney representing two of the county’s Republican prosecutors, said an appeal was planned.
Cunningham had filed a restraining order against county prosecutors hours after the appeals court’s August 1 decision and following a request from attorneys representing Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
While the majority of attorneys general in counties with abortion clinics said they would not enforce the ban, Republican prosecutors in Kent, Jackson and Macomb counties said they should be able to enforce the 1931 law.
Cunningham heard arguments Wednesday and Thursday in Pontiac before the initial injunction, which is expected to keep abortion legal across the state until the Michigan Supreme Court or voters can decide in the fall.
The Michigan law of 1931, which was passed after the US Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, prohibits abortion in all but the life of the mother. The dormant ban was retroactively blocked from taking effect in May when Judge Elizabeth Gleicher issued a preliminary injunction.
The state court of appeals later said that the initial injunction only applies to the attorney general’s office, meaning that providers can be charged with a felony by some county attorneys general.
The plaintiff representing Whitmer and Democratic prosecutors argued that allowing county attorneys to decide whether to enforce the 1931 ban would cause confusion and force many providers to stop all abortion services.
“We can’t expect doctors to read the attorney general’s opinions and try to figure out what the attorney general thinks the life-saving exception means. That is exactly what will happen if the initial injunction is not issued,” Eli Savit, the Washtenaw County attorney general said during the pleadings. Closing Thursday.
Kalman said in his closing arguments that a preliminary injunction is not how laws should be changed.
“It is the right of all people in Michigan to read and vote or pass their representatives and do so through the appropriate legislative and elected process to change the law,” Kalman said.
A ballot initiative that seeks to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution turned 753,759 signatures in July and is expected to eventually decide the state of abortion access in Michigan. The amendment awaits final approval on the November ballot by the state’s Board of Commissioners.
The state of Michigan’s abortion is expected to affect the state’s general election in November, with Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel, also a Democrat, making abortion rights a focus of their reelection campaigns.
“In the absence of this preliminary injunction, physicians face a very real threat of prosecution depending on where they practice,” Nessel said in a statement issued following Friday’s ruling.
Joey Cappelletti is a member of the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national service program that puts journalists in local newsrooms to report confidential issues.
The video in the player above is from a previous report.
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