State seeks to dismiss lawsuit challenging abortion amendment backed by voters
Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office argues antiabortion groups don’t have the legal standing to file a legal challenge to Michigan’s voter-approved amendment guaranteeing abortion access, state attorneys argued in a court filing submitted Tuesday.
While she doesn’t believe the lawsuit has merit, legal efforts to undermine and restrict abortion access are likely to continue even after voters passed Proposal 3 in 2022, Nessel said in an interview with the Free Press.
"We think this is a meritless case. And we believe that the judge should dismiss it as quickly as possible," she said.
Antiabortion organizations, led by Right to Life of Michigan, filed a lawsuit in federal court last November seeking a permanent injunction against Prop. 3, listing Nessel, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson as defendants. In 2022, 57% of Michigan voters approved Prop. 3, a ballot measure that enshrined in the state constitution the "fundamental right to reproductive freedom" including the right to seek an abortion as well as other contraception and infertility care.
Proposal 3 allows the state to regulate abortion after fetal viability, but the state cannot ban abortion if it's medically needed for the patient. Plaintiffs, which include three Republican state lawmakers, had argued Proposal 3 is unconstitutional because it creates a “super-right” to abortion access.
Defendants filed a motion to dismiss the case Tuesday, meeting a deadline set by presiding U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney in the Western District of Michigan. Nessel said these groups lack standing to bring the case, however, since the legal injuries they claim are hypothetical, and can’t display actual injury under Prop. 3’s implementation.
"Here, Plaintiffs cannot show any injuries-in-fact as none of their allegations support a finding of the actual, imminent, or substantial risk of imminent injury that caselaw requires," Assistant Solicitor General Kyla Barranco wrote in the filing.
Nessel has advocated for abortion access during her tenure as attorney general. She said the case is concerning since other judges have heard cases and granted decisions restricting access to abortion and other reproductive health care products since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022.
“I think we're going to continue to see lawsuits in states like ours that have enshrined reproductive rights into our constitution,” Nessel said. “And I think it's never going to stop. Antiabortion activists will never stop trying to make abortion completely illegal in all the United States.”
One such notable case took place in Texas, which bans abortion in most cases. In December, the Texas Supreme Court rejected a woman’s request for an abortion. The woman was 20 weeks pregnant, with a fetus expected to die in utero or shortly after birth. She said carrying a baby to term would also risk her health and future fertility, the Associated Press reported.
“There's the hypothetical harms alleged by the plaintiffs, and then there are the very real-world harms that we know for a fact are occurring right now in states that don't have abortion rights, and I think that's a stark contrast,” Nessel said.
The Associated Press contributed. Contact Arpan Lobo: alobo@freepress.com. Follow him on X (Twitter) @arpanlobo.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: State files to dismiss lawsuit challenging Michigan abortion amendment
