August 16, 2022
The proposed constitutional amendment legalizing abortion through all nine months of pregnancy is filled with 43 serious errors in the constitutional language and must be rejected this month by the Board of State Canvassers, according to a challenge to be filed this week by the campaign opposing the amendment.
“The text of the amendment is filled with run-on words that are incomprehensible, making an already confusing amendment impossible to understand,” said Christen Pollo, spokesperson for Citizens Supporting Michigan Women and Children. “Amending the constitution is serious business, and these people didn’t take it seriously enough even to proofread their own language.”
In three key passages of the text of the constitutional amendment, all the spaces between words have been removed, resulting in strings of gibberish that would become a permanent part of our state constitution if adopted by voters. This includes:
- DECISIONSABOUTALLMATTERSRELATINGTOPREGNANCY
- INCLUDINGBUTNOTLIMITEDTOPRENATALCARE
- POSTPARTUMCARE
- ORALLEGEDPREGNANCYOUTCOMES
- INCLUDINGBUTNOTLIMITEDTOMISCARRIAGE
- ORABORTION
- PREGNANCYWHEN
- JUDGMENTOF
- ANDBASEDONTHEPARTICULAR
- FACTSOFTHECASE
- THEREISASIGNIFICANTLIKELIHOOD
- OFTHEFETUS’SSUSTAINEDSURVIVALOUTSIDETHE
These errors appear in key passages of the constitutional text describing the circumstances when an abortion clinic could authorize late-term abortions and perhaps authorize infanticide, rendering it nearly impossible for voters to understand what they’re voting for.
“This amendment cannot be made part of our constitution in its current form. And there is no legal or constitutional process for changing the text of the amendment at this late stage. It is shocking, indeed, that more than three-quarters of a million voters — including the Governor and the state Attorney General — signed a petition they didn’t read and couldn’t understand. But this error-riddled mess cannot be put on the ballot,” said Pollo.
A version of the proposed constitutional amendment without these 43 critical mistakes was approved as to form by the Board of State Canvassers. Proponents then circulated a different form of the petition without approval.
“There’s no fixing this confusing gibberish. The amendment must be rejected by the Board of State Canvassers on the 31st,” she concluded.