(WWJ) - A number of protests and rallies took place this afternoon in Detroit and across the listening area in the wake of Friday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down Roe v. Wade.
People for and against abortion rights gathered after the Supreme Court overturned its landmark decision made in 1973 and ended constitutional protections for abortion.
Pro-choice groups planned rallies in Palmer Park in Detroit, Bronson Park in Kalamazoo and the State Capitol in Lansing.
WWJ's Jon Hewitt reported from outside the federal courthouse in downtown Detroit where a pro-life rally was being held. Shanay Watson-Whittaker from Michigan Voices told Hewitt she fears about the future of her four daughters.
"I worry about them having to have the government interfere with their reproductive choices and what they do with their bodies," Watson-Whittaker said. "That they no longer than autonomy over their bodies like I did when I was younger."
Watson-Whittaker is one of many pro-life advocates collecting signatures to put the abortion issue before voters in November.
A group was out along 9 Mile and Woodward Ave. in Ferndale Friday evening, collecting signatures to put abortion rights on the ballot
The signatures need to be turned in by July 11th.
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On the other side, supporters of the SCOTUS decision gathered outside a Planned Parenthood clinic on Farmington Road near 5 Mile in Livonia, where Citizens for a Pro-Life Society and Pro-Life Michigan celebrated.
Signs reading "Honk for Life" and "Roe is Dead" were waved at drivers passing the group.
Director Monica Migliorino Miller told Hewitt that Michigan lawmakers shouldn't fight the state's 91-year-old abortion ban.
"Killing innocent human life is flat out wrong and unjust and were going to continue to stop that, to cultivate an awareness for humanity of the unborn and protect life at all stages," Migliorino Miller said.
She argued against Gov, Gretchen Whitmer's injunction against a 1931 abortion ban, saying state officials and local district attorneys shouldn't get to decide "which laws they're going to enforce and which ones they're not,"
"This is a dereliction of duty and frankly I think it may also cause them to be somewhat vulnerable when it comes time to be re-elected because we're going to make an issue out of that," Migliorino Miller said.
Whitmer filed a lawsuit back in April, asking the Michigan Supreme Court to recognize a constitutional right to an abortion under the Due Process Clause of the Michigan Constitution. It also asks the court to stop enforcement of the 1931 Michigan abortion ban.
The law reads as follows:
“Administering drugs, etc., with intent to procure miscarriage — Any person who shall willfully administer to any pregnant woman any medicine, drug, substance or thing whatever, or shall employ any instrument or other means whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of any such woman, unless the same shall have been necessary to preserve the life of such woman, shall be guilty of a felony, and in case the death of such pregnant woman be thereby produced, the offense shall be deemed manslaughter.” (Read the law HERE).
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