A Michigan judge on Tuesday overturned a law requiring a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion can be administered in the state.
Judge Sima Patel ruled that the law conflicted with an amendment Michigan voters passed in 2022 enshrining abortion rights into the state’s Constitution.
The waiting period existed in Michigan for years, but Patel temporarily blocked it last year, arguing that it “exacerbates the burdens that patients experience seeking abortion care,” according to The Associated Press.
Michigan abortion providers sued last year to overturn the 24-hour waiting period for patients and to scrap the informed consent law, as well as a law that barred advanced practice clinicians from providing abortions.
Patel, a Court of Claims judge, also reversed a part of the law that required abortion providers to give patients fetal development charts and information on alternatives to abortions, arguing that it also violates the Reproductive Freedom for All constitutional amendment.
