Case status: On May 13, 2025, the Michigan Court of Claims permanently struck down these restrictions as violations of the RFFA. Read more.

Summary

In November 2022—just months after the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion—Michigan voters approved an amendment to their state constitution protecting reproductive freedom, including abortion. The Reproductive Freedom For All Act (RFFA), which prohibits government infringement on the ability to make decisions about reproductive health care, is one of the broadest guarantees of reproductive freedom in the nation.

In light of the RFFA, the Michigan legislature repealed some abortion restrictions in its 2023 legislative session but retained three that are burdensome on patients, including:

• A law mandating that abortion patients wait a minimum of 24 hours after receiving biased counseling materials before they can access care.
• A law forcing clinicians to dispense, and patients to consume, biased counseling before and after the 24-hour waiting period. The biased counseling materials include information that is irrelevant, inaccurate, and stigmatizing.
• A prohibition on qualified advanced practice clinicians (APCs) providing abortion care. APCs are permitted to administer the same medications and procedures for patients experiencing early miscarriage.

About the case

About the case

On February 6, 2024, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed this case in the Michigan Court of Claims to challenge the three abortion restrictions.  

The lawsuit argues that the restrictions violate the RFFA by:

• Imposing medically unjustified restrictions on abortion. 
• Singling out abortion care for uniquely onerous treatment. 
• Discriminating against Michigan residents who already face health inequities—including Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, low-income communities, and people in rural areas of the state.

Although named a defendant in the case her official capacity, Michigan State Attorney General Dana Nessel filed a brief three weeks after the case was filed, agreeing that the court should temporarily block the restrictions since they likely violate the RFFA. Other attorneys within the AG’s office intervened on behalf of the People of the State of Michigan to defend the laws.

In June, the court granted a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking the three restrictions, with the exception of one element of the counseling requirement. The state subsequently filed a motion to appeal and sought a stay of the preliminary injunction. The Center opposed the state’s motion.

The Michigan Court of Appeals denied the state’s motion in August, leaving the restrictions blocked as the case proceeds. A trial was held at the Michigan Court of Claims starting February 13, 2025.

On May 13, 2025, the Michigan Court of Claims permanently struck down the restrictions as violations of the RFFA. In striking down the restrictions, Judge Sima Patel agreed that the laws violate the state constitutional right to abortion and rejected the state’s arguments that the laws protect patients’ health. She wrote that forcing patients to read biased, inaccurate information is “paternalistic and stigmatizing, making the patient feel belittled for becoming pregnant.”

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