State Representative Sarah Roberts, a vocal supporter of abortion, recently introduced a one-sentence bill to repeal Michigan’s Abortion Insurance Opt-Out Law.
More than 315,000 Michigan citizens signed petitions to initiate legislation to ensure that they would not be forced to pay for abortions, through their tax dollars or their health insurance premiums. The citizen-initiated legislation was passed overwhelmingly by the Michigan House and the Michigan Senate, and the Abortion Insurance Opt-Out law went into effect on March 14, 2014.
After the legislation was presented to the state legislature, abortion advocates promised their own petition drive to collect signatures to challenge the law. They would have only been required to collect around 160,000 signatures to challenge the law by placing it on the ballot as a referendum. After conducting opinion polling and debating the issue, pro-abortion groups Planned Parenthood and the ACLU realized there was not enough public support for them to collect the signatures and win a vote on the issue.
Instead of doing the hard work of collecting hundreds of thousands of signatures, abortion supporters delivered a one-sentence bill on June 12, 2014, right before the state legislature went on recess. The fact that Michigan voters for many years have elected prolife majorities in the state House and Senate means this pro-abortion bill is dead on arrival, unlike the dozens of common-sense prolife bills over the years which have worked their way through the Michigan legislative process and become law. Considering abortion supporters have already raised funds off of a challenge to Michigan’s Abortion Insurance Opt-Out law, perhaps they wanted to make sure their promises weren’t completely empty.
In 1988, Michigan voters decisively voted to end taxpayer-funded abortions through the state’s Medicaid program. The following year, the number of abortions in Michigan dropped by more than 10,000. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved as a result since 1988. Laws that prevent people from being forced to pay for abortions both respect the conscience rights of citizens and save lives. Abortion supporters and abortion businesses which stand to profit from tax-subsidized abortions want to undo our state’s protections.
Unfortunately in some states like Connecticut, citizens have no choice under Obamacare but to now pay for abortions. Michigan citizens—including even many people who may think abortion should be legal but don’t want to be forced to pay for abortions—can rest assured they won’t find themselves being forced to pay for abortions in Michigan.
TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT THE WAR ON WOMEN RHETORIC
