Wednesday, March 10, 2004

Good News for Pro-life Voices

I saw this mentioned on Catholic Analysis:

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that pro-life supporters have gathered enough signatures to help pass a partial-birth abortion ban over the Michigan governor's veto. Apparently, in Michigan if enough registered voters sign a petition, the law can be thrown back to the legislature and passed without concern for the governor's veto power.

This is, of course, tremendously good news on a number of fronts. However, at the most basic level, it shows that pro-life forces can win major political victories. It is very interesting to note that the volunteer efforts of committed pro-life people were able to accomplish what paid and, ostensibly, more organized forces have been unable to do. Pray that the law passes and is used to help save lives.

Backers of a proposal to ban so-called partial-birth abortions announced Tuesday that they have collected enough petition signatures to allow the Legislature to pass a veto-proof law.

The campaign, which calls itself the People's Override, reached its goal of 325,000 signatures in less than two months using only volunteer circulators, according to Right to Life of Michigan.

RTL President Barbara Listing said the petitions will be submitted to the Secretary of State on April 5. The group needs 254,206 of the signatures to be certified as belonging to registered voters for the Legislature to be allowed to enact the ban without Gov. Jennifer Granholm's approval.

Granholm vetoed identical legislation late last year.

"The people have spoken loud and clear to the governor," Listing said in a statement Tuesday.

Granholm spokeswoman Liz Boyd said the governor continues to oppose legislation to limit abortions that does not contain exceptions for the life and health of the pregnant woman. The proposed ban contains such exceptions, but Granholm and abortion-rights advocates regard them as meaningless and said the legislation could result in the prosecution of physicians.

Regardless, the signature-collection campaign, which relies on the formidable organization of Right to Life and the Michigan Catholic Conference, was a stunning success. No other Michigan groups have been able to collect signatures for ballot proposals or legislative initiatives without paid circulators in at least 20 years.



Posted by David at 5:11 PM  |  Comments (0)  | 

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