Target End Date Announced for End Dismemberment Petition Drive

Lansing, MI — Thursday, December 12, has been set as the target end date for collecting signatures for the Michigan Values Life petition to ban the late-term dismemberment abortion procedure in Michigan.

Right to Life of Michigan is projecting to have 363,000 signatures believed to be valid by Friday, December 13. That number represents petitions that have been checked, petitions being sent in and includes a low estimate of final returns based on previous petition drives.

The legal requirement for citizen-initiated legislation in Michigan is 340,047 valid signatures. The goal for the petition drive remains 400,000 signatures.

Right to Life of Michigan President Barbara Listing said, “We’ll exceed the legal requirement, but we can’t guarantee every signature is valid—even after thorough checking. We need to collect 37,000 additional signatures in the final three weeks. We must have an adequate cushion above the requirement to feel confident about ending the drive successfully. We don’t want to find out we’ve been disqualified after we’ve crossed the finish line.”

Right to Life of Michigan is asking petition drive volunteers to continue to collect signatures until December 12. All remaining petitions must be postmarked or returned to Right to Life of Michigan offices by December 13 to ensure they will be counted and checked.

Right to Life of Michigan is also asking volunteers not to hold signatures until the target end date, but to send in completed petitions as soon as possible. Right to Life of Michigan staff need adequate time to check every signature. Petitions with signatures dated as far back as July continue to be returned every day.

Listing said, “So far we’ve had more than 7,800 volunteers circulating petitions. We applaud their hard work, but we need a strong final push. If every circulator collected five more signatures, we can close the gap in our cushion. Hundreds of thousands of prolife people have signed the petition but haven’t circulated one yet. If just a few of them join our affiliates’ efforts around the state, we only need 150 additional signatures a week from each county until the end. We’re confident that our all-volunteer force will rise to this challenge.”

The petition drive began on June 26, 2019. The end of the 180-day window for gathering signatures is December 23, 2019.

Listing said, “Our affiliates have worked hard for more than four months now. They have faced unprecedented challenges—even from before we began collecting signatures. Our final challenge is three weeks of hard work to do everything in our power to protect unborn children from the cruel reality of being torn limb-from-limb in womb.”

Additional petitions and educational materials can be requested through the petition drive website, michiganvalueslife.org. Those who want to help their local Right to Life of Michigan affiliates can sign-up through the Right to Life of Michigan website: rtl.org/affiliates/volunteer.

For more information: Right to Life of Michigan Legislative Director Genevieve Marnon, (517) 487-3376, [email protected].

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