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| "Legal Birth Definition Act" Should Be Rejected by Courts. |
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Green Party of Michigan June 14, 2004 The Green Party of Michigan (GPMI) calls on the judicial system to strike down the "Legal Birth Definition Act" and protect the right of women to choose for themselves whether or not to have an abortion -- as well as the availability of abortion services, without which the legal right to choose is meaningless. Earlier this year, GPMI went on record at the state Legislature as opposing the petition drive to ban so-called "partial-birth abortions" by imposing on state law definitions that run counter to scientific and medical knowledge. Federal and state courts have rejected similar attempts to elevate religious and political motives above scientific and medical knowledge -- and the social justice of allowing all women a genuine, exercisable right to reproductive choice. On International Women's Day in March, GPMI sent an excerpt from its platform -- which supports "the right of women to accept or refuse an abortion for themselves" -- to the Michigan House and Senate Fiscal Agencies to serve as the party's comment against legislative action to pass the petition. GPMI record keeper Adrianna
Buonarroti, the party's 2002 candidate for lieutenant governor, observes
that "partial-birth abortion" is not a medical term, but
rather "a loaded word created by those who are "The French doctor who developed RU486, the so-called abortion pill, said in an interview that he had been moved to develop it because he had been in Africa where women did not have access to abortion clinics and had witnessed the aftermaths of women giving themselves abortions with sticks and rocks," Buonarroti recalled. "If that doesn't convince someone that the desire to stop being pregnant is a highly compelling one, if not a survival instinct, then they are not familiar enough with the psycho-physiological consequences of pregnancy and need to educate themselves further before forming a final opinion." Buonarroti concludes, "Those who are narrow-minded enough to believe that women are rampantly having late-term abortions for no reason clearly are out of touch with the excruciating reality that some women must face." Buonarroti's running mate, 2002 gubernatorial candidate Douglas Campbell, notes the disproportionate hullabaloo over what is, if the definitions is as narrow and focused as supporters claim, an abortion procedure used in fewer than 0.5% of cases. "Given how incredibly invasive this procedure is, I can't imagine any woman consenting to have it performed, or any doctor consenting to perform it, unless the likely consequences are far riskier than the procedure," Campbell adds. "And if anyone suggests that a late-term abortion was chosen just to be rid of a pregnancy, we need to educate him that the best ways to prevent late-term abortions are contraception and early-term abortions, not having legislators dictating procedures to physicians." GPMI chair Marc Reichardt agrees that the furor over what medical science calls "dilation and extraction" abortions is not justified by the small number of cases in which the technique is used. "What this act really is," Reichardt concludes, "is an assault on at least two of the four principles underlying the right to choose an abortion -- an attack on the notion that abortion should be safe, legal, available, and rare." For more information about GPMI, the party's views on reproductive choice, the candidates it has already nominated for the November ballot and the county caucuses at which it will nominate more candidates, and its delegation to the national Green Party's Presidential nominating convention June 23-28 in Milwaukee, please visit our Web site: http://www.migreens.org --------------------------------- Attachment: Excerpt from GPMI Platform II. Social Justice c. Abortion Rights and
Reproductive Freedom Greens support: * The right of women to accept or
refuse an abortion for themselves.
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