LANSING — Abortion opponents will embark on a petition drive to ensure that Michigan residents have to buy an optional rider on their health insurance to cover abortions.
And unlike most petition drives, if they get at least 258,088 valid signatures, and the Legislature approves the issue, it will become law without a signature from Gov. Rick Snyder, who has already vetoed the bill last year, or a vote of the people.
The state Board of Canvassers approved the petition form Wednesday and the organizers can begin collecting signatures after getting petitions printed and training circulators, said Barbara Listing, president of Right to Life of Michigan.
“This is good public policy,” she said. “People do not want to pay for other people’s abortions.”
■ Related story: Read the petition
If the proposal becomes law, it would require all private and public health insurance plans to offer a separate rider for an abortion. And a person would have to buy that rider before knowing if they need an abortion or not. They would not be able to buy the rider after getting pregnant by any means, including rape or a late-term miscarriage.
And that’s the rub for abortion-rights activists. Dozens of people — many dressed in bright pink Planned Parenthood T-shirts — crammed into the state Board of Canvassers meeting Wednesday morning to protest the petition drive.
“This is an attack on women’s health, pushed by the same individuals who shut women down a year ago,” said Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum, the former state representative who was silenced by House Republican leaders last year because of the language she used during a debate on abortion-related legislation.
“How many people think they’re going to have a miscarriage? How many people think they’re going to be raped. How can you even understand that’s going to happen to you?” she said.
The Legislature added the optional rider language onto a bill last year that transformed Blue Cross Blue Shield into a nonprofit mutual insurer. Even though the BCBS bill was a priority for Snyder, he vetoed the bill because of the abortion language.
The way the initiated law works is that if the abortion opponents gather enough valid signatures, they submit the petitions to the Legislature, which has 40 days to vote to approve the petition. The rider petition would then become law and doesn’t need the governor’s signature or a vote of the people.
If the Legislature rejects the petition, an unlikely occurrence in the majority Republican House and Senate, it would go on the November 2014 ballot.
Pro-choice activists will work to make sure people know what they’re signing when the petitions begin circulating this summer.
“The grassroots is going to start organizing and making sure people refuse to sign the petition,” Byrum said. “And then we’re going to rally to the polls again until we get the extremists out of office.”
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: 'You Say What You Like, Because They Like What You Say' - http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/alerts-2013/731-you-say-what-you-like-because-they-like-what-you-say.html
http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNFq50fXXdeHF54BT4DTMq-qUUYONQ&url=http://www.freep.com/article/20130522/NEWS/305220077/Abortion-opponents-petition-drive-could-bypass-state-vote-potential-veto
0 comments:
Post a Comment