ROME — Lansing Bishop Earl Boyea has launched a campaign against a proposed abortion amendment to the Michigan state constitution, urging voters to halt the “extreme” measure.
“The Reproductive Freedom for All initiative is the most extreme abortion proposal this country has ever witnessed,” Bishop Boyea declared in a pastoral letter that was read at all Sunday Masses across the Diocese of Lansing last Sunday.
The initiative, spearheaded by Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union, constitutes “a new and grave threat to our children and to our culture of life,” the bishop asserted, because it “seeks to enshrine abortion up to, and including, the day of birth in our state constitution.”
The amendment would also “eliminate dozens of Michigan laws that presently regulate abortion,” including “parental consent and notification laws; laws that prohibit partial-birth abortion; informed medical consent laws.”
It would also wipe out abortion waiting periods, protections against taxpayer-funded abortion, laws requiring abortion facilities to be licensed and inspected by the State of Michigan, and the conscience rights of healthcare workers who refuse to participate in abortions, he noted.
“To tinker with the Constitution is very serious business. We should reject this proposal on that basis alone,” he added.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has stated repeatedly that she and her allies in the pro-abortion lobby will “fight like hell” to enshrine abortion rights in Michigan law.
File/Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks at a news conference in Oxford, Mich., Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
“How then do we respond to those who fight like hell?” asked Bishop Boyea. “Simple: We fight like heaven.”
“We will overcome this attack on life,” the bishop said, if people of good will employ the weapons of prayer, sacrifice and action.
“It’s as dramatic and as simple as that,” he said.
“We have less than two months before voting on November 8th. Time is short. Our task is great. The Lord, however, always provides,” Boyea said. “Therefore, let us work cheerfully and unstintingly knowing that His grace is sufficient.”
Among the bishop’s specific proposals is a 54-day rosary novena to begin on Thursday, September 15, the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, which will conclude upon the eve of polling day on November 8.
I am calling upon all within the Diocese of Lansing, both clergy and laity, to engage in “54 days of prayer, fasting and almsgiving in union with the Blessed Virgin Mary who is Queen of the Family, the mother of all mothers and the patroness of the unborn,” he said.
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