Michigan places pro-abortion proposal on ballots

A Michigan election board placed a pro-abortion amendment proposal on the state’s Nov. 8 ballot on Friday. Pro-abortion groups earlier this year collected a record-breaking 750,000 signatures in a petition drive to get the proposal on the ballot, but the Board of State Canvassers rejected the proposal in a 2-2 vote last week. The Republican commissioners voting against the proposal cited formatting errors in the amendment. Pro-abortion groups appealed the vote to the Michigan Supreme Court, which ordered the board yesterday to approve the measure for the November ballot. Abortion is the top issue motivating citizens of Michigan to vote in November, according to a poll by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV.

What are other states doing? South Carolina’s majority Republican Senate failed to pass stricter protections for the unborn Thursday. The law under debate would have protected babies from abortion in all cases with almost no exceptions. The state’s Supreme Court is reviewing a law that safeguards babies starting at 6 weeks of gestation. Meanwhile, the state’s 2016 law protecting unborn babies after 20 weeks is in effect.

Dig deeper: Read Joel Belz’s column in WORLD magazine on how relativism has infected the debate on abortion in the United States.