NEWS RELEASE
OFFICE OF ATTORNEY GENERAL
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LANSING – Today, in response to a lawsuit filed by Right to Life of Michigan and other anti-choice organizations and advocates, the Michigan Department of Attorney General filed a Notice of Supplemental Authority (PDF) alerting the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan to a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court rejecting certain plaintiffs’ standing to challenge regulations on mifepristone.
The notice was filed after the briefing on the Defendants’ motion to dismiss concluded in April. The Right to Life lawsuit seeks to strike down the right to reproductive freedom.
In the notice, the department highlighted the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM), which was issued in June. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the plaintiffs, a group of anti-abortion medical associations and individual doctors, lacked standing to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) regulation of mifepristone.
The department’s notice explained that the Supreme Court’s rejection of the AHM plaintiffs’ claim that the FDA’s rules on mifepristone required them to provide abortion care against their consciences should similarly result in dismissal of the Right to Life plaintiffs’ conscience-based injury claims. The department also noted the Supreme Court dismissed the AHM plaintiffs’ argument that they had standing by incurring costs to oppose the FDA’s rules, reaffirming that an organization “cannot spend its way into standing.” The Right to Life plaintiffs make similar arguments, which are also without merit.
“The Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding access to mifepristone underscores the lack of standing for individuals and organizations who oppose abortion on moral, ideological, or policy grounds to deprive millions of Michigan women of their constitutional right,” AG Dana Nessel said. “As I have always argued, this lawsuit is a blatant, politically motivated assault on a fundamental liberty, devoid of merit. Just as the Supreme Court dismissed the AHM plaintiffs’ case, so too should the Court reject this unfounded challenge.”
Background
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the issue of abortion was returned to the jurisdiction of individual states. To guard against the revival of an extreme, decades-old statute criminalizing all abortions except those performed to preserve the life of the pregnant individual and to definitively resolve the issue within this State, Michigan voters passed Proposal 3 to amend the state Constitution and enshrine within it a right to reproductive freedom.
In November 2023, Right to Life of Michigan, along with Republican lawmakers and others opposed to Michiganders’ right to reproductive freedom, filed a federal lawsuit seeking to invalidate and enjoin Section 28 of Article 1 of the Michigan Constitution, which became the law following the passage of Proposal 3. The lawsuit names Nessel, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson as defendants and seeks to overturn the will of the People of Michigan.
The attorney general filed a motion to dismiss in late January. In response, the plaintiffs amended their complaint. The department filed a new motion to dismiss, arguing that the plaintiffs’ amended complaint remains fundamentally flawed and meritless.
Nessel has been an outspoken advocate for reproductive health since taking office in 2019. The attorney general has joined multi-state amicus briefs to support access to healthcare in Idaho and Indiana and has also joined coalitions seeking to preserve access to medication abortion nationwide.
When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, reviving Michigan’s 1931 abortion ban statute, Nessel made it clear that she would not use the resources of her office to defend the statute. She called for the repeal of the law and in March 2023, the Michigan legislature voted to do just that. Nessel also filed a brief in support of placing abortion access on the November 2022 ballot.
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