Monday, June 24, 2024, marks the two-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. This decision corrected what is widely recognized as bad law and sent the debate on life back to the people and their elected officials. In this post-Roe era, Right to Life of Michigan (RLM) celebrates the two-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision and recognizes the national impact it has already had on protecting life!
The Dobbs ruling also ignited a national debate on life. Sadly, this extraordinary opportunity has been overshadowed by the desperate attempts of big money donors and abortion-only special interests to politicize the issue for electoral gains. Moreover, in Michigan, there is no getting around the fact that we’ve had a tough couple of years, with voters securing a sweeping “right” to abortion in the state constitution. In this moment, it is important to remember that reproduction and abortion are not issues of any political party. They are and have always been decisions of the woman.
Today, a woman in Michigan can choose to have an abortion for any reason. But for choice to truly exist, women must have every opportunity to make a choice for life.
At Right to Life of Michigan, we have taken the opportunity to refocus our efforts – to reach out to women and embrace choice and all that a hopeful, courageous choice for life can bring. We must champion expanded access to prenatal and postnatal care. As a society more broadly, we must also commit to offering robust support to the more than 100 Pregnancy Resource Centers (PRCs) across our state that provide women free medical care, confidential counseling and material support.
Two years after Dobbs, abortion clinics in Michigan are less safe than they were even a year ago, as a result of Governor Gretchen Whitmer and her allies removing long-standing health and safety standards for abortion clinics. The governor and her proabortion allies also legalized partial-birth abortion, and they eliminated transparency for the abortion industry by striking abortion reporting from law, to name just a few items. Then, after failing to remove Informed Consent and the 24-Hour Waiting Period in the legislative process, they have appealed to the courts. Next, we know they want to remove parental consent for abortion.
At RLM, we will not sit idly by. We are continuing to expand our educational efforts in communities across the state. We have expanded our staff team and youth outreach, launched a new multi-media advertising campaign (with a referral to a PRC help hotline) and begun an aggressive campaign to elect candidates who stand for common-sense protections for women and children, like parental consent, in our state.
You’ve likely noticed that life issues are the nucleus of the cultural moment, the engine driving our political debate and our societal discourse. Now is the time to engage on the issue and help offer women a real choice, a choice for life. If you’re reading this and wondering what you can do to help, please email us at info@rtl.org. If you’re willing to make phone calls from your home to prolife voters as part of our broad campaign efforts, please mention that in the message! We can use the help.
Thank you for your ongoing work on behalf of women, families, and children, particularly the unborn!
Amber Roseboom
President
Right to Life of Michigan