Michigan Attorney General Won’t Defend Abortion Law

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) “will not defend the state in a lawsuit filed Thursday by Planned Parenthood of Michigan, saying she agrees with the suit’s assertion that a 1931 state law that bans most abortions in the state is unconstitutional,” the Detroit Free Press reports.

Said Nessel: “This law is dangerous. This law effectively strips women of their dignity and bodily autonomy, and in some cases, of their lives. I will not enforce it, and neither will I defend it. I will take no part of driving women back into the dark ages and the back alleys.”

“The 1931 law makes providing an abortion a felony unless done so to protect the life of the pregnant person. However, it has not been enforceable since 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that the federal Constitution bars state bans on abortion.”