Arguments in a legal challenge to abortion restrictions that remain on the books in Michigan opened Thursday before a Michigan Court of Claims judge. The laws are currently blocked by a preliminary ruling from Judge Sima Patel.
Patel is being asked to determine that “informed consent” and 24-hour waiting period laws violate the 2022 voter-approved Michigan Right to Reproductive Freedom amendment.
The Legislature and Governor Gretchen Whitmer repealed many abortion restrictions after Democrats were swept into power in the 2022 elections. But a handful of restrictive abortion laws remain on the books. The targets of this challenge are laws that, absent the judicial hold on enforcement, would require patients to wait 24 hours to get an abortion after signing a written consent form and to view images of fetuses at different gestational stages.
The challenge was filed by Northland Family Planning Centers, which operates three clinics. Executive Director Renee Chelian was the first witness called to the stand. She said the laws are coercive and especially hard on patients in crisis.
“It’s biased. It’s unnecessary. It burdens the patient,” she said. “There’s no reason for it.”
She said medical ethics and standards of care already address sharing relevant information with patients, while the laws in question make it harder for patients and are downright cruel to pregnant people facing tragic circumstances.
“That fetal anomaly patient — do you think she wants information about parenting or prenatal care or any other alternatives?” she said. “No. She wants to have that baby and she can’t.”
The state attorney defending the laws has yet to argue his side of the case, but appeared to be laying the groundwork for arguing the standards in the laws being challenged are very similar to accepted professional standards.
The trial is expected to continue through the end of next week.
