Case:  Planned Parenthood of Michigan v. Attorney General of the State of Michigan

Court: State of Michigan Court of Claims

Citation: 2022 WL 7076177 (Mich. Ct. Cl. 2022)

Holding: The court held unconstitutional Michigan’s 1931 law, which made abortion a felony, and granted permanent declaratory and injunctive relief prohibiting enforcement of the 1931 law.

Constitutional Claims: 1) Due Process Clause, Const 1963, art 1 § 17; 2) Equal Protection Clause, Const 1963, art 1, § 2

Key Reasoning:The court reasoned that when considering the Michigan Constitution, “the liberty component of our Due Process Clause must be interpreted more broadly than Dobbs.” 2022 WL 7076177 at 6. Emphasizing that Michigan has a long constitutional history of enshrining personal rights, the court found that the framers of the state’s Constitution always envisioned it to be a document that would evolve to include new rights over time. Id. at 11. This, the court observed, is in stark contrast to the Dobbs approach to federal constitutional interpretation, in which the Supreme Court looked backwards to determine political and civil rights. Id. To properly interpret rights under the Michigan Constitution, the court reasoned it must look to “the understanding of personal freedom, particularly for women and people of color, motivating those who drafted and ratified our 1963 Constitution.” Id. at 10. Considering its state constitutional history, such as the official record of the constitutional convention, the court held: “When it comes to the recognition of civil and political rights, our state’s Constitution charges us to look forward, and to inform our conclusions about the liberties enjoyed by our people in the lights of an ‘ever changing conception of a living society.’” Id. at 10.

The court emphasized that another reason for interpreting the Michigan constitution differently was that unlike the federal Constitution, which devotes the first three articles to describing powers of government, “Article I of Michigan’s Constitution bestows on our citizens 24 different and specific personal rights, including several that do not appear in the federal document.” Id. (emphasis in original). Among those are a provision declaring that “[t]he public health and general welfare of the people of the state are . . . matters of primary public concern. The legislature shall pass suitable laws for the protection and promotion of the public health.”  Id. at 11. The court found that “protection of public health interlaces with plaintiffs’ bodily integrity claim” and held: “Our Constitution’s public-health commandment and the primacy of its focus on individual rights support that a statute endangering health by denying a right to abortion deprives Michiganders of due process of law.” Id.

Likewise, the Court held that Dobbs did not cabin interpretation of the Michigan Equal Protection Clause given the fundamental differences between the state and federal constitutions. Applying strict scrutiny, it held that the abortion ban violated equal rights both because it discriminated against pregnant people for exercising a fundamental right, and because it constituted sex discrimination.  As to the latter, it held: “the statute not only reinforces gender stereotypes, but ‘perpetuate[s] the legal, social, and economic inferiority of women.’” Id. at 16. (quoting United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515, 534 (1996)).  Notably, in considering arguments that the 1931 ban was not animated by sex-stereotypes, the court invoked an amicus curiae brief of professors of history and law for making the “far stronger case” and offering “abundant evidence” that “passage of the 1931 law was fueled by ‘a pervasive world view in which women’s status in law, and their bodily integrity, were consistently compromised.’” Id. at n.10.

Case Status/Subsequent History: In February 2023, the state legislature repealed the 1931 law, and in May 2023, the Michigan Supreme Court declined to review all outstanding appeals from the Court of Claims decision.