Healthcare (Women's Health)

This bill proposes changes to Michigan's Public Health Code to establish specific licensure requirements for freestanding abortion clinics. It directly affects healthcare facilities that operate outside of hospitals by mandating they meet new regulatory standards set forth in the added sections. The legislation would require these clinics to obtain a license and comply with updated health and safety provisions outlined in the amended statutes.

HB 4671 amends Michigan's penal code to establish criminal liability for injury or death of an unborn child under assault and homicide laws, defining "unborn child" as a living human being from fertilization. The bill adds exceptions allowing medical procedures that unintentionally harm or kill a fetus when performed to save the mother's life, preserve the fetus's health, or during a spontaneous miscarriage. It applies existing legal defenses (like duress) and presumptions to cases involving fetal injury or death, treating the unborn child as equivalent to a born individual for prosecution purposes. This bill directly affects medical providers and individuals whose actions may cause fetal harm during medical treatment, as it clarifies when such actions could be prosecuted under criminal law.

HB 5202 requires healthcare professionals to submit written reports to Michigan's Department of Health for any patient experiencing a physical complication or death directly linked to an abortion. The reports must be anonymized (removing patient identifiers), aggregated into the state's annual abortion statistics, and destroyed after five years. The bill mandates the department to create a standardized reporting form for urgent care facilities and emergency departments, which must be distributed and posted online. This bill, tied to companion legislation HB 5201, focuses solely on data collection requirements without changing abortion access or medical standards.