News Release: “We’re All in This Together”

LANSING—In a full-page ad appearing in newspapers across the state this weekend, Michigan Catholic Conference (MCC) Chairman Cardinal Adam Maida has urged both the citizens and elected officials of Michigan to come together to protect life and support the Legal Birth Definition Act.

“Certainly, believers and non-believers alike can agree that our state has a compelling interest in protecting the life of a born person,” said Cardinal Maida. “The Legal Birth Definition Act secures those rights, declaring that a partially born child is legally born, while providing for the life and physical health of the mother.”

The Legal Birth Definition Act, the first of its kind in the nation, is a straightforward effort to create a boundary for abortion by declaring birth, and the commencing of legal rights, to be at the point where any portion of a child is aginally delivered outside the mother’s body.

“Without a determination of when a child is legally born, every partially born child in Michigan is at risk,” said Cardinal Maida. “We’re all in this together… Including and especially our newest and most vulnerable citizens, our newborn children.”

Appearing in Sunday’s Detroit Free Press and News, Lansing State Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Kalamazoo Gazette, The Saginaw News, Traverse City Record Eagle and The (Marquette) Mining Journal, the letter addresses the public policy reasons as to why the state has a compelling interest in supporting the Act. The letter is also available on the MCC’s Web site at: www.micatholic.org

In addition to Sunday’s letter, parish priests will honor October as Respect Life Month by reading a pastoral letter during mass the weekend of October 4–5 that speaks to the theological reasons for supporting the Legal Birth Definition Act.

Michigan Catholic Conference is the official public policy voice of the Catholic Church in this state.

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