Right to Life of Michigan braces for expected challenge to petition drive from Planned Parenthood by June 1, prepares counter-measures

LANSING — After months of delay because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Michigan Bureau of Elections has resumed counting signatures on a petition to ban dismemberment abortions in Michigan.

The Michigan Values Life coalition began the petition drive on June 26, 2019, hoping to gather 400,000 signatures in a 180-day timeframe. On Dec. 23, the coalition submitted 379,419 signatures, surpassing the 340,047 required to send the ban on dismemberment abortions to the Michigan Legislature.

The Michigan Bureau of Elections has operated with a limited staff because of the pandemic, but has begun the process of validating the signatures by using a sample of 500 randomly selected signatures to be used for verification. 

However, organizations that oppose the measure — such as Planned Parenthood — may contest the signatures by June 1, which Right to Life of Michigan expects will happen, said Genevieve Marnon, legislative director of Right to Life of Michigan.

“The state has to allow a challenge period for anyone who would like to challenge our petition drive, and they have 10 business days to do so,” Marnon told Detroit Catholic. “Because of the holiday weekend with Memorial Day, along with the shutdown days, they really have 17 days in total to challenge, all the way to June 1. We expect to see a challenge from Planned Parenthood.”

The challenge process mimics the same process the State Bureau of Elections uses to validate the signatures, using a sample of 500 signatures. Right to Life of Michigan is already preparing to take its own sample of 500 signature for the counter challenge they plan to file once the original challenge is filed.

Barbara Listing, president of Right to Life of Michigan, is confident the organization will have the requisite number of signatures to move the petition on to the state Legislature.

“Planned Parenthood said they will consider challenging our signatures; they want to continue profiting off this heinous procedure,” Listing said in a press release. “We went above and beyond our normal process for checking our signatures because of the uncertain 2018 change in the petition drive law. We hope to exceed our previous record of a 97 percent validity rate during our 2004 petition drive to ban partial-birth abortions.”

Listing said the signatures meet the requirements of a 2018 change in state law that mandates a petition can’t have more than 15 percent of signatures from any one of Michigan’s 14 congressional districts.

In May 2019, state Attorney General Dana Nessel issued an opinion that the requirement was unconstitutional, effectively voiding its impact.

“The Legislature passed this law mandating more than 15 percent of the signatures can’t be collected in one congressional district, but that was being challenged by the (Michigan) secretary of state,” Marnon said. “The attorney general issued an opinion, which is binding for stage agencies, so we are functioning on the attorney general’s opinion of the law and the secretary of state’s interpretation of the law.”

Once the signatures are verified and all challenges are processed, the signatures will go to the Board of State Canvassers for a final approval or rejection of the signatures. If approved, the petition will go to the Michigan Legislature, where the state House of Representatives and state Senate will have the option to pass the dismemberment ban without the signature of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has promised to veto it.

If the Legislature doesn’t take up the issue in 40 days, the ban will go to the November ballot.

“We’re confident our pro-life elected majorities in the Legislature will do the right thing and vote for this ban again, just like they did in May of 2019,” Listing said.

The 2019 petition process began after the Michigan House of Representatives and Michigan Senate each passed its own version of a bill banning “dilation and evacuation” abortions, but neither bill was passed in the opposite chamber and sent to the governor’s desk.

Before the bills were sent to the opposite chamber, Right to Life of Michigan elected to start gathering signatures for a citizen-initiated petition drive, wanting to take advantage of the summer months to gather signatures instead of waiting for a likely veto from the governor.

Until the June 1 period to challenge the signatures is up, there is nothing much for pro-life supporters to do but sit and wait, Marnon said.

The petition seeks to classify dilation and evacuation abortions as partial-birth abortions, a procedure banned in a 2004 state constitutional amendment.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reports 2,076 of the 27,339 abortions that took place in Michigan used the dilation and evacuation method, accounting for 7.6 percent. It is the most common method of late-term abortions in the state, with 311 of the 349 abortions that took place in the 21-24 weeks of gestation being dilation and evacuation abortions, and 696 of 849 abortions that take place 17-20 weeks of gestation being “D-and-E” abortions.