Conservatives in the House approved another 'partial birth abortion' law on May 27, sending the measure to Gov Jennifer Granholm. Proponents indicated that they had modeled this measure on the identical federal legislation in order to avoid falling afowl of federal courts, which had ruled in 2005 that a previous Michigan ban was unconstitutional. Consequently, a procedure that is already illegal under federal law would now redundantly be made illegal under state law. The measure was strongly supported by the Michigan Catholic Conference, despite the lack of evidence that it would have any effect on the historically low levels of abortion evident in recent state statistics.
The State Health Department had indicated that the procedure has not been performed in Michigan for at least three years. Furthermore, there is no evidence that the federal law has stopped even a single abortion anywhere in America since the Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality last year.
One can only conclude that the ardent supporters of the measure are not so much concerned about the unborn as they are about clinging to a means of labeling certain public figures as "pro-abortion." Whether 'partial birth abortion' is more gruesome than common abortion procedures is an issue that is not much discussed. But in a presidential election year, Michigan Right-to-Life seems focused primarily on setting the stage for endorsing the Republican candidate, without any particular concern about the record of failure on abortion accumulated under the Bush Administration. The national abortion rate fell about 50% faster under the Clinton Administration (4.5/1000), compared with projections for the 8 years since 2000 (~3/1000).
