Dem
51
GOP
49
In January, the Democrats took over the trifecta in Michigan and now they are starting to use their new power. Yesterday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) signed a bill repealing the 1931 law that banned abortions. It hadn't been enforced in years due to Roe v. Wade, but since the Dobbs decision, it became functional again. But now it is history. Whitmer called it a zombie law.
Technically, repeal wasn't necessary since the voters approved a constitutional amendment last year enshrining the right to an abortion in the state constitution, but Whitmer wanted to get rid of it anyway so it couldn't pop up later at some unexpected moment (e.g., if the voters ever repealed the amendment). While she was at it, Whitmer also signed a bill repealing another law that made it a crime to sell books or pamphlets describing how to make drugs that cause abortions.
With the victory of Janet Protasiewicz for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, it is expected that an abortion case will come before the that body very soon and it will rule 4-3 that the state's anti-abortion law violates the state Constitution. If that happens, in a four-state bloc in the Upper Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illiniois), abortion will be legal post Dobbs. (V)