FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Joint statement from: ACLU of Michigan, Michigan Voices, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan, Reproductive Freedom For All Michigan, Progress Michigan, Northland Family Planning, Michigan Chamber of Reproductive Justice, LGBT Detroit, All* Above All, Native Justice Coalition, Michigan Organization on Adolescent Sexual Health, APIA Vote MI, Mothers of Hope, Equality Michigan, Jews for Secular Democracy, Michigan Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Network, Scottsdale Women's Center, Scottsdale Women’s Clinic, Eastland Women’s Clinic, YWCA Kalamazoo, Detroit Jews for Justice, Oakland Forward, Rising Voices, CrazyMilkLady Lactation, Detroit Disability Power, Michigan Coalition for Reproductive Liberation, Center for Change: a Northern Michigan Advocacy Group, Working Families Party, Michigan Peoples Campaign, Wisdom Institute, Fems for Democracy, Detroit Change Initiative, Detroit Action, Women’s Organization on Rights to Health at the University of Michigan, Dr. Natalie Gladstein, Dr. Halley Crissman, Dr. Razel Remen
LANSING, MI – Advocates for abortion access in Michigan released the following statement in response to the Michigan House of Representatives passage of the Reproductive Health Act without key components of the bill:
“Michiganders across the state support people’s freedom to make their own decisions about their lives, bodies, and futures, and to access abortion care, without politicians interfering. Voters have time and again sent a clear mandate to elected officials to take action to remove unnecessary restrictions on abortion access that only impose barriers to care. And yet – thanks to one Michigan House member’s foolhardy opposition to this critical legislation – this chamber just passed a watered-down version of the Reproductive Health Act that lacks key policy reforms that are both desperately needed and widely supported by voters across the state.
Without eliminating the Medicaid abortion ban and the 24-hour mandated delay, access to abortion care will remain out of reach for too many across our state.
Barriers like these make abortion care more difficult to access and often have a disproportionate impact on Black and brown people, people working to make ends meet, rural residents, and other marginalized communities. Moreover, voters across the state support repealing these harmful restrictions.
We applaud and thank Senator Sarah Anthony and Representative Laurie Pohutsky for their leadership in sponsoring the Reproductive Health Act in the legislature, and all lawmakers who supported it. And we condemn the actions of Representative Karen Whitsett, who pushed to remove these key provisions of the Reproductive Health Act. Her actions will perpetuate the harm being done to her constituents and communities across the state and are a direct affront to the change voters demanded when they passed Proposal 3, including by a margin of 71.2 to 28.8 in Wayne County which encompasses Whitsett’s district.
While the provisions that were passed today are an incremental improvement for Michiganders seeking abortion care, this stripping away of critical components of the Reproductive Health Act is not in line with the will or the needs of voters across the state. We will not stop until barriers to abortion access are removed, and all Michiganders have equitable access to this constitutional right.”
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