Watch: Left-Wing Pro-Lifers Use Televised Football Game to Warn Against Michigan Abortion Ballot Initiative

PAAU / ABC / ESPN

Left-wing pro-life activists unfurled a banner during a televised college football game on Saturday, warning against a Michigan ballot initiative they say could lead to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.

Members of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) can be seen displaying a large banner that read “NO PROP 3” and 2363.org as a kicker sent a football flying through the end zone goal posts during the University of Michigan v. Michigan State University game at Michigan Stadium. The group said it held up the banner “in response to the extreme and dangerous nature of the constitutional amendment that Michigan will be voting on next Tuesday.”

“My home state, Michigan, is at risk of becoming an extremist late-term abortion destination. Ensuring the failure of Prop 3 is essential to limiting the exploitive power of the Abortion Industrial Complex, and informing the voters of Michigan is the key,” PAAU founder and executive director Terrisa Bukovinac said in a statement on Monday. 

“The unborn children conceived in less than perfect circumstances are at risk of being killed in greater numbers than ever before and it is the responsibility of every Michigander of goodwill to protect them by voting NO on Prop 3,” Bukovinac continued. 

PAAU is the same group that says Bukovinac and the group’s director of activism Lauren Handy intercepted 115 infants from Curtis Bay Medical Waste Services outside of the Washington Surgi Clinic in Washington, D.C. on March 25, including five babies they say may have been partially aborted or killed after birth in violation of federal law.

One of PAAU’s founding board members, 26-year-old pro-life atheist Herb Geraghty, was also just recently indicted by the Department of Justice under the FACE  (Freedom to Access Clinic Entrances) Act, which the group says is “part of the Biden administration’s ongoing persecution of nonviolent anti-abortion activists and leaders.” Geraghty could face up to 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $260,000.

Meet Herb Geraghty: The Latest Pro-Life Activist INDICTED by Biden's DOJ

FACING 11 YEARS IN PRISON — Registered Democrat and atheist, Herb Geraghty is not your typical pro-life activist, but that didn't stop President Joe Biden's Justice Department from indicting the 25-year-old on "conspiracy against rights and FACE Act offenses in connection with an alleged reproductive health care clinic blockade" back in 2020, according to a DOJ press release. "If convicted of the offenses, the defendants each face up to a maximum of 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $260,000." Geraghty, the executive director of Rehumanize International, spoke with Breitbart News back in December 2020 (video above). Following his indictment, Geraghty further told Breitbart News he expects "to either get arrested like the others or be told that [he] can self surrender." "But I'm not sure which yet because they won't tell me," he added.

Posted by Breitbart on Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Michigan’s Proposal 3 would amend the state’s constitution to add that:

Every individual has a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which entails the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, sterilization, abortion care, miscarriage management, and infertility care.

In other words, it would make abortion an individual “right” in the state.

“An individual’s right to reproductive freedom shall not be denied, burdened, nor infringed upon unless justified by a compelling state interest achieved by the least restrictive means,” the proposal states, adding:

Notwithstanding the above, the state may regulate the provision of abortion care after fetal viability, provided that in no circumstance shall the state prohibit an abortion that, in the professional judgment of an attending health care professional, is medically indicated to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual.

The approved summary of the ballot initiative notes that it would “invalidate state laws conflicting with this amendment.”

Opponents of the initiative say it is written in a vague and confusing way and leaves room for dangerous interpretation. 

“Planned Parenthood and the ACLU’s amendment would radically distort Michigan’s Constitution to create a new unlimited right to abortion, which would spill over and affect many other issues,”  Citizens to Support Michigan Women and Children says on its website. “This poorly-worded amendment would repeal dozens of state laws, including our state’s ban on tax-funded abortions, the partial-birth abortion ban, and fundamentally alter the parent-child relationship by preventing parents from having input on their children’s health.”

Proponents of say Prop 3 “seeks to just overrule the 1931 ban, won’t interfere with safety, and allows the legislature to regulate after “fetal viability” (about six months),” according to a report from MLive.com. Michigan State University College of Law professor Mae Kuykendall told Michigan Radio she believes “malpractice would still apply. You either are a competent, responsible physician who performs safe abortions or you’re kind of a hack, and if you’re a hack, you’re not protected by this.”

The MLive.com report notes that Prop 3 “holds majority support in surveys but has dipped in popularity since Roe‘s immediate fall, with support starting in the 60s and currently sitting in the 50s.”

“The latest poll, conducted two weeks ago by SSRS for CNN found 54 percent support and 45 percent oppose, with 1 percent undecided. The ‘Yes’ side just barely clears the 4.2-point margin of error,” according to the report. 

California, Michigan, and Vermont all have abortion-related ballot initiatives on the ballot that would amend state their state constitutions to decree a “right” to abortion.

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