MICHIGAN — For months, the Reproductive Freedom For All initiative was a ballot proposal backed by a group of the same name. Their goal was to get Proposal 3 on the November ballot to enshrine reproductive rights into Michigan’s constitution.
By July, RFFA volunteers collected a record 753,000+ signatures. Months later, they were certified. Tuesday night, its fate was in the hands of Michigan voters. Around 3 o’clock Wednesday morning, the Associated Press reported that it had passed.
“What happened is we the people of the state of Michigan directly have said that we believe that a woman, well any individual, has a right to reproductive freedom,” said Michael McDaniel during a Zoom interview on Wednesday afternoon. “So, we have put that into our constitution. That will now be part of the rights section in the Michigan Constitution, which has to then be followed by every court in the state, up to and including the Michigan Supreme Court.”
McDaniel is a constitutional law professor at Western Michigan University’s Cooley School of Law. Reproductive rights is expected to be enshrined in 45 days, he said, but there may be some challenges.
“When I say challenges, I don’t mean to the vote itself, but remember to all your viewers that a constitutional amendment, think of it like the 4th Amendment of the Constitution, which talks about unreasonable search and seizure,” McDaniel said. “It’s in the Constitution. But it’s such a broad phrase that there is lots of opportunity — once you put that in context of different facts and circumstances, different individuals — that need to interpret that to exactly what it means. So, over time there will be some court cases trying to decide the scope and effect of this new constitutional amendment.”
He said one area that may get argued is around the language and specificity of parental consent, an issue many opposers of Prop 3 had.
“I don’t see this as an absolute right for a child under 18 that you have an abortion without parental consent. I think there will be some balancing there. There will need to be a legislative and or a court challenge to determine that degree of parental consent,” he said. “And when I say parental consent laws that’s also based on the fact that just as abortion is now a fundamental right, the idea that parents having the ability, the right I should say, to supervise and raise their children has always been recognized under federal constitutional law. And, that’s not going away.”
According to AP, 57% of Michigan voters, or 2.47 million voters, said ‘yes’ to Prop 3.
McDaniel said what stood out to him most was how much support it got from people on both sides of the aisle, including women in the independent party. He believes they may have been the difference in the race, and it may influence other states to do the same.
“We’re not talking Republican vs. Democrat. We’re talking about independence. And of course in Michigan we have a strong, strong section [or] percentage of independent voters. They always go for the party out of power, which means you think they would go for the Republicans,” McDaniel said. “Well, when they break that down, 3% more independents went for Democrats than for Republicans. And of that 3%, independent women overwhelmingly, like almost 70% [or] high 60% of independent women, voted for Dems. And I totally believe that that was because of having this Proposal 3 on our ballot.”
