Current Status
H.B. 4406 was signed into law by Governor Granholm on July 13, 2010. Sponsored by Rep. John Espinoza, it took effect on January 1, 2011.

Description
H.B. 4406 closes a gap in the current Abortion Reporting law by adding a check-off box to the abortion report for those with Hispanic ethnicity. Hispanics are now the largest minority group, but have gone unnoticed in the report since it is considered an “ethnicity” and not a “race.” The Michigan Department of Community Health will now collect data on Hispanic ethnicity among women having abortions beginning January of 2011. This information will be invaluable when discussing how to specifically target and reduce the rate of abortions in the Latino community.

Background
P.A. 368 of 1978 requires the physicians who perform abortions fill out a detailed report to be submitted to the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH) within 7 days of the abortion. The MDCH compiles this information and submits an annual report. It wasn’t until 2002 that “race” was added to the abortion reporting law as one of the demographics. This small tidbit of information has brought to light a huge phenomena – the disproportionate number of black babies aborted compared to any other race. By discovering this disparity through hard evidence, new educational programs were launched to help bring a new awareness to the plight of blacks who are being destroyed by abortion.

History
H.B. 4406 was voted out of the House Health Policy Committee on October 20, 2009. The vote was 15-0 with 3 legislators abstaining. The bill passed the House on April 20, 2010 with a vote of 98-9. The ACLU supported this noncontroversial bill and Planned Parenthood was neutral. H.B. 4406 then passed the Senate with a vote of 37-0 on June 29, 2010.

Sen. Valde Garcia introduced the identical Senate bill, S.B. 372, on March 12, 2009.

A prior version of the bill, H.B. 6045, was originally introduced by Rep. Espinoza on May 6, 2008 and referred to the Committee on Judiciary. The bill was never scheduled for a hearing.