State Prolife Legislation Setting High Mark

Right to Life of Michigan's annual Legislative Day in Lansing on April 27 was a launch point for a recording-setting prolife legislative agenda. Grassroots citizen-lobbyists attending the event were briefed on 20 different pieces of legislation which had either already been introduced or were in the works. Several of those bills have been introduced since the April lobbying event.

Topping the legislative priority list is a bill to finally put a ban on partial birth abortion (PBA) into state law. While there is a federal ban making PBA illegal here, we must rely on Obama administration officials to enforce that law. A state Senate committee has already moved Senate Bill 160 to the Senate floor for consideration, which could come before the Legislature's summer recess.

Likewise, the House Families, Children & Seniors Committee began the process of taking testimony on the PBA ban in June. Voting action in the House may not occur until after Labor Day depending on the summer recess calendar, which has not been announced.

An equally-high priority is legislation to exclude abortion coverage from health insurance plans which will be required under the federal "Obamacare" law starting in 2014. Numerous states have enacted this exemption already. RLM is promoting a bill excluding abortion coverage from all insurance plans and requiring the coverage to be available only by an optional policy rider for those wanting the coverage added to their plan.

Still more bills are slated to put tighter regulations on abortion clinics and close a legal loophole which allows abortion clinics to throw the bodies of aborted babies in a common trash dumpster. Another new bill seeks to prohibit the practice of "Webcam abortions," where women only "see" the abortionist by means of an Internet/webcamera conference. The abortionist then prescribes the chemical abortion pill (RU-486) remotely and is never physically present for an examination or follow-up care.

Other bills planned will put strict penalties in place for attempting to coerce a woman to have an abortion. A related bill would require abortion clinics to post signs that coercion is illegal and screen women for potential coercion. Reviews of, and access to, all RLM-supported bills can be found on our website.

In addition, the Legislature acted this spring to establish public accountability over embryonic stem cell research, more than 2 years after voters approved Proposal 2, legalizing destructive embryo research. A provision added to the "Higher Education" budget requires any public university conducting embryo research under Proposal 2 to report certain data to the state health department. The requirement has raised some controversy and legal debate and could lead to future court action.

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