MICHIGAN (WXYZ) — Abortions in Michigan remain legal, following the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade.
However, that could change if a 1931 law in Michigan effectively banning abortion, goes back into effect.
Due to a May ruling in Michigan's Court of Claims, that law is temporary paused.
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In a separate lawsuit, Gov. Whitmer is also asking the Michigan Supreme Court to determine if abortion rights are protected under the state's constitution.
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Public health data, including from the CDC and NIH, show that women of color tend to have the highest rate of abortion.
According to MDHHS's Division for Vital Records & Health Statistics, in 2021 more than half of induced abortions performed in our state were on Black women, 55.6%.
35% were performed on white women, and 2.8% were performed on women of Hispanic ancestry.
Public health experts warn that women making below the federal poverty line will be most impacted now that abortion access differs state-to-state.
“If it means traveling out of state to get an abortion, that is costly. It’s costly to pay for the abortion procedure itself, but it’s also costly to take time off of work, to travel, to potentially get child care," said Dr. Joelle Abramowitz, an assistant research scientist at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.
State data from MDHHS also shows that in 2021, 67.5% of Michigan resident women who received an abortion, had a previous term pregnancy. 41.6% had at least two or more term pregnancies.
The obvious short-term impact to the SCOTUS ruling, in the event that Michigan's 1931 law is once again enforced, is that health systems would see more births, Abramowitz said. She said, one way to prepare is for health systems to ramp up pre-natal care and resources for mothers who need them.
“In the long term, we would expect that we would see more births from people that likely don’t have the means to provide for those children," she said.
The rate of abortion in Michigan has been on a steady decline since the late 80s, with a slight uptick in the early 2000s. But since 2009, the rate has climbed.
Last year, with 30,074 induced abortions, it was higher than it had been since 1993.
