Election 2018: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Photo courtesy of MI Senate

Before we look at the results, thank you to the many prolife volunteers around the state who outdid themselves these last few weeks. Right to Life of Michigan and our many volunteers made more than 2,050,000 voter contacts in the general election campaign, and our election posts on social media collected more than 625,000 views. That’s a lot of people reached with RLM-PAC endorsement lists and prolife educational information. That doesn’t include many TV and radio ad spots. Though the top of the ticket was an “up-mountain” battle with the proposals on the ballot, these efforts made a critical difference down the ballot.

The Good 
Most importantly, we have a prolife majority in the U.S. Senate. This secures the ability of President Trump to nominate fair justices to the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous lower courts. With a better margin, even better judicial appointments can be approved by the Senate. We continue to remake a judiciary that has been enshrining abortion-on-demand as the law of the land for four decades; the end of Roe v. Wade remains in sight. It’s clear that the ugly attacks against Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his nomination fight made an impact on Election Day.

Michigan also defended prolife majorities in our State Senate and House. Even with a pro-abortion governor now, this means we don’t have to worry about pro-abortion legislation. Thanks to Michigan’s unique citizen-initiated legislative process, we have also preserved an avenue for passing prolife legislation by making Gretchen Whitmer irrelevant to the process.

The Bad 
We could have had a 100% prolife governor for the first time in 16 years, but sadly, Gretchen Whitmer defeated Bill Schuette. We lost an opportunity to easily make many life-saving advances in our state law. This also means the number of apathetic or hostile bureaucrats in state government will increase, further frustrating efforts to enforce our laws.

There is now a pro-abortion majority in the U.S. House. The national prolife legislative agenda will remain stalled outside of further enforcement or regulatory changes by President Trump. We have a precarious 4 to 3 prolife majority on the Michigan Supreme Court.

Justice Elizabeth Clement won, but Justice Kurtis Wilder narrowly lost. There’s no room for error when it comes to upholding our state’s prolife laws in the courts.

The Ugly 
We could have had a truly excellent Michigan attorney general in Tom Leonard. Instead, Michigan voters elected Dana Nessel by a slim margin. Nessel stumped on her campaign by saying she wants to shut down prolife pregnancy centers and not enforce prolife laws. Though her duty is to enforce the law, her words seem to indicate that she believes her duty is a crusade for her extreme beliefs.

Nessel is a volatile figure, and there’s no telling what she will do. Whatever happens, it’s our duty to do everything we can to make sure our prolife laws remain enforced and to stand 100-feet tall in defense of prolife citizens and organizations who may find themselves unjustly targeted by our state’s new top law enforcement officer.