Ahead of an anticipated ruling in this term’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which the Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer is asking the Michigan supreme court to bolster access to legal abortion in her state.
Whitmer, a pro-abortion Democrat, has joined abortion-advocacy organizations in taking legal action against a Michigan law that bans most abortions, a law that was nullified by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling in Roe. She has asked the state supreme court to immediately determine whether the state constitution contains a right to abortion, which would render all pro-life protections moot even if Roe and Casey were overturned. She’s also suing local prosecutors in state court to prevent them from enforcing the existing ban on abortion if it were to take effect after the Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence were overturned.
Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood of Michigan and Michigan abortionist Sarah Wallett have sued Michigan’s attorney general attempting to prevent her from enforcing the abortion ban if it were to take effect. Their suit argues that the existing pro-life law violates the state constitution’s guarantees of liberty, bodily integrity, equal protection, and privacy, as well as the protections of state civil-rights provisions.
“I joined this suit because it is fundamental to my oath as a physician to do no harm – and being forced to deny abortion care and violating the basic rights of my patients would cause them immense, irreversible harm,” Wallett said, apparently choosing to ignore the irony of invoking the Hippocratic Oath in favor of a procedure that directly kills a human being.