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Cd. Maida, MCC join efforts to override Granholm and adopt Legal Birth Definition Act

DETROIT - The Michigan Catholic Conference, headed by Cardinal Adam Maida, is joining pro-life group Right to Life of Michigan to see that the state adopts the Legal Birth Definition Act -- a law that would define legal birth and effectively eliminate partial birth abortions.

On Oct. 10, Gov. Jennifer Granholm vetoed a bill to define legal birth, and thus ban certain late-term abortions. The bill was widely supported in the state Legislature.

Partial birth abortions -- where all but the baby’s head is delivered, then the skull crushed and the brains sucked out -- currently are legal in Michigan.

Right to Life, which this month plans to distribute petitions for the override, hopes in six months to collect the 254,206 signatures necessary from registered voters to override the governor’s decision.

To aid Right to Life, Cardinal Maida and the Michigan Catholic Conference will encourage Catholics to take part in petition drives and collect signatures at parishes.

“The Michigan Catholic Conference and the Archdiocese of Detroit will be very involved,” said Ned McGrath, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Detroit. “Letters will be going out under the cardinal’s signature.”

The efforts, McGrath said, will take place on the weekends of Jan. 24, Jan. 31 and Feb. 7. Correspondences detailing the efforts will be sent to pastors and parishioners in the first week in January, he said.

Right to Life stated in a press release that it already has more than 1,000 volunteers to distribute petitions. If the required number of signatures is submitted by July 15, the issue will either be put to vote in the Michigan Legislature or placed on the ballot.

Gov. Granholm said she vetoed the bill because it didn’t contain a “clear exception” for the health and life of the mother -- though some medical experts have argued that partial birth abortions are never medically necessary to maintain the mother’s health or life.

The cardinal has called Granholm’s veto “most disappointing.”

“Until and unless we stop partial-birth abortions, our newest and most vulnterable citizens -- our newborn children -- are at risk,” he has said.

- Joe Kohn and Robert Delaney