The pro-abortion news website Rewire recently published an article about the Democratic primary race for Michigan governor: “Michigan Democratic Gubernatorial Candidates Take Aim at ‘Zombie’ Law Banning Abortion.”

What is this “zombie law”? Since 1846, Michigan has legally protected the lives of unborn children. The most recent update of our law was in 1931. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, this law may have an opportunity to go back into effect.

Abortion supporters call this a “zombie law” because they somehow believe it’s already dead. Except that’s not true at all.

In January of 1973, Roe v. Wade and its companion case Doe v. Bolton overturned the laws of all 50 states, forcing abortion through all nine months of pregnancy for any reason on them. Several weeks prior, in November of 1972, Michigan voters had a chance to vote on our “zombie law.” Abortion supporters tried to repeal it through Proposal B of 1972, but 60 percent of Michiganders voted to keep our law.

Can you call a law that got a supermajority of support from voters “dead”? Can you call a law that’s still legally enforceable in some cases “dead”? We don’t think so.

Roe v. Wade, however, is certainly a case befitting the walking dead. Only 13 percent of Americans believe abortion should be generally legal in the third trimester, but that’s the law of the land because of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. That’s 87 percent of Americans who oppose its effects.

Abortion supporters’ use of the term “zombie” is laden with tragic irony. Roe v. Wade has the outer husk of an actual judicial decision, but it is dead inside; even pro-abortion lawyers can’t justify it on legal grounds. It’s abortion that consumes the lives of innocent human beings in apocalyptic numbers, not laws that protect them.

Once you get past the verbal smokescreen of terms like “zombie law,” you can see where Gretchen Whitmer actually wants to take Michigan if elected governor. It goes well beyond just Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, but to forcing people to pay for abortions, even bringing back partial-birth abortions.

If there is any idea in America that should be buried, yet still manages to stalk the countryside harming innocent lives, it’s the idea that we can declare a class of human beings subhuman and refuse to honor their unalienable right to life.

Chris Gast
Director of Communication/Education
cgast@rtl.org