May 9, 2019, Lansing, Mich.—Today the Michigan Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee voted 5 to 2 to send our dismemberment abortion ban to the full Michigan Senate.
Senate Bills 229 & 230 would amend Michigan’s 2011 ban on partial-birth abortions by including the dismemberment abortion procedure, also known as a dilation and evacuation abortion (D&E).
Identical bills are pending on the floor of the Michigan House. House bills 4320 & 4321 were recommended favorably by the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
Right to Life of Michigan President Barbara Listing said, “Both the Michigan Senate and House have these bills before them. It’s time to act and put an end to the practice of tearing arms and legs off of children in the womb.”
Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy used the term “dismemberment” to describe dilation and evacuation abortions (D&E) in his U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions on partial-birth abortion.
In Stenberg v. Carhart, Justice Kennedy wrote, “The fetus, in many cases, dies just as a human adult or child would: It bleeds to death as it is torn from limb from limb. The fetus can be alive at the beginning of the dismemberment process and can survive for a time while its limbs are being torn off.”
Listing said, “This is not proper medical care for any human being. There is nothing humane about tearing the arms and legs off a child, before or after birth.”
The dismemberment abortion procedure is the most frequently-used late-term abortion procedure. In 2017, there were 1,777 dismemberment abortions in Michigan reported to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
The dismemberment ban bills include an exception if the mother's life is in danger. However, in published research on reasons women have abortions, the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute has stated that most late-term abortions are done for elective reasons.
In a 2013 Guttmacher Institute study, the authors admitted, “But data suggest that most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.”
Background Information:
DISMEMBERMENT ABORTION ANIMATED PORTRAYAL
DISMEMBERMENT ABORTION FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
MICHIGAN ABORTION STATISTICS
GUTTMACHER LATE-TERM ABORTION STUDY
