Right to Life Michigan is a pro-life organization trying to ban second-term abortions. | Pixabay
Right to Life Michigan is a pro-life organization trying to ban second-term abortions. | Pixabay
The Elections Board of Michigan on June 18 decided to request another ballot initiative submitted by two anti-abortion groups, saying the initiative may have fallen short of required signatures.
Right to Life of Michigan, along with Michigan Values Life, needed 340,000 voters signatures to qualify for an election, but they may have run 7,300 signatures short due to duplication and errors, WILX 10 reported.
The two groups want a ban enacted on dilation and evacuation, a surgical abortion procedure, describing it as a form of “dismemberment.”
The Elections Board decision came after staffers for the Bureau of Elections judging a ballot initiative sample determined there were not enough acceptable signatures. The Board of State Canvassers decided a larger sampling was necessary.
Eric Doster, lawyer for Michigan Values Life, told WILX 10 that petition sheets had been removed in error before the first sample was taken.
“We certainly have a means to undertake another sample to ensure greater certainty and balancing the risk that over 380,000 citizens will be disenfranchised versus the minimal burden for the Bureau of Elections to resample,” Doster told WILX 10.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has vowed to veto similar legislation that's been proposed by Republican legislators. A ballot initiative can go around a veto under state law.
Right to Life of Michigan President Barbara Listing said the initiative resubmission will be completed.
“We are happy the board of canvassers saw reason today and will allow another sample to be drawn," she said on the organization's website at Right to Life Michigan. “We look forward to continuing the process of this petition drive and to eventually stop the barbaric practice of dismembering children in the womb.”
Listing said she expects Planned Parenthood to once again challenge the petition drive and overturn the rights of the people who signed it.
“We will once again defend the voice of the people who signed these petitions,” she said, according to WILX 10.
Abortion rights advocates contend that the dilation and evacuation procedure is safe and that doctors should not be prosecuted for using it.
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