Lansing, MI — Right to Life of Michigan filed an amicus curiae brief on January 2 asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the June Medical Services LLC v. Gee case on March 4.
Right to Life of Michigan President Barbara Listing said, “Michigan voters overwhelmingly chose to keep our state’s abortion ban in November 1972. Just weeks later, the U.S. Supreme Court blatantly overstepped its bounds by inventing a right to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.”
June Medical Services LLC v. Gee involves a Louisiana law requiring abortionists to obtain admitting privileges at local hospitals.
Abortionists often have no relationship with local hospitals and women experiencing life-threatening complications from botched abortions have been dumped at emergency rooms or forced to seek care themselves because of a lack of follow-up care. Risks to the woman’s life and health are increased if the medical staff caring for a woman after a botched abortion cannot obtain even basic details from the abortionist.
The brief argues that the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision went beyond the scope of their power, violated the process for amending the U.S. Constitution, and has undermined the legitimacy of our nation’s judicial system. The Supreme Court has recognized that the government has an interest in protecting the life of unborn children, and the brief asks the Supreme Court to live up to their own standards.
If the Supreme Court is unwilling to revisit Roe v. Wade yet, the brief argues that Louisiana’s law should be allowed to stand. Louisiana’s law is constitutional even under the faulty standards of Roe v. Wade and the 2016 case involving a similar Texas law, Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt.
Listing said, “Since Roe v. Wade was decided, an estimated 60 million unborn children have had their lives unjustly taken from them. No voter or elected official consented to strip away their right to life. It’s time for this stain on democracy to be overturned to allow the people to once again have a voice about our most fundamental human right.”
The brief was prepared by lead counsel Professor William Wagner and the Great Lakes Justice Center.