Michigan state lawmakers voted Tuesday to ban a relatively common second-trimester abortion procedure, adding to the growing list of anti-abortion bills passing in Republican-controlled state legislatures.
Michigan’s House and Senate both voted along party lines on legislation to ban dilation and evacuation procedures, commonly known as D&Es, and to make it a felony for a physician to perform them except to save a woman’s life. The bills define the procedure as “dismemberment abortion,” an anti-abortion term referring to what doctors call one of the most medically safe abortion methods.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said Tuesday that she will immediately veto the legislation once it reaches her desk.
“I think that these are decisions that should be made between a woman and her doctor,” Whitmer told reporters. “I’ve always supported a woman’s autonomy and freedom to make her own choices, and that should be no surprise to anyone in this town.”
The vote comes on the heels of several other states restricting abortion access, including Alabama’s ongoing attempt to ban abortion with almost no exceptions. Georgia became the fourth state this year to pass a ban on abortion at six weeks of pregnancy, and a federal judge blocked a similar Kentucky bill earlier this year.
Many of these bills are being challenged in court, but anti-choice advocates and Republicans hope that the conservative-leaning Supreme Court will eventually overturn Roe v. Wade.
“We’ve seen what happens when politicians interfere in these deeply personal medical decisions,” ACLU Michigan policy strategist Merissa Kovach said in a statement. “In states that have passed other abortion bans, some women and their families have been put into horrific situations ― needing to end a pregnancy, but unable to do so.”
Culled from the Huffpost.
