Michigan Partial-Birth & ‘Dismemberment Abortion’ Ban Act (HB 4552)

HB 4552 would amend MCL 750.90h, the “partial-birth abortion ban act,” to include a ban on “dismemberment abortion,” unless it is necessary to save the life of the pregnant person.

This bill would make anyone who knowingly performs a partial-birth abortion or “dismemberment abortion” guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for up to 2 years and/or a fine up to $50,000.

The bill defines “dismemberment abortion” as when a physician “uses any instrument, device, or object to dismember a living fetus by disarticulating limbs or decapitating the head from the fetal torso and removing the dismembered fetal body parts from the uterus regardless of whether the fetal body parts are removed by the same instrument, device, or object or by suction or other means.”

This law targets a procedure known as dilation and evacuation (D and E), which is frequently used during second-trimester abortions. According to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, an abortion using suction aspiration can be performed up to 14 weeks’ gestation, but after 14 weeks the D and E procedure must be used to perform an abortion. As such, dilation and evacuation bans, depending upon their language, may ban all surgical abortion past 14 weeks’ gestation. (Source.)

Related Legislation

Based on model legislation drafted by the National Right to Life Committee.

Tie-barred with HB 4553.

Companion bill to SB 392/SB 391.

Similar to HB 4833 and SB 704, which failed to pass in 2015 and 2016, respectively.

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People

Organizations

• National Right to Life Committee — Drafted Model Law