A look back at 50 years: 1990

This is the fifth entry in a monthly series we’ll be running throughout 2017 looking back at historically significant profile moments in our state’s history.

 
1990 was a huge year for the prolife movement for two big reasons.

There were a lot of minor teen abortions in Michigan. In 1990 there were 3,820 abortions performed on girls 17 and under in Michigan. In most cases the parents had no clue their child had surgery and their grandchild had died. The position that children need permission to be given aspirin in school but can undergo surgery in secret is not very popular, yet it carried the day for years in Michigan, largely thanks to just one man: Governor Jim Blanchard.

Michigan's Legislature passed a bill in 1990 requiring parental consent for minors before they can have abortions, but Governor Blanchard vetoed it. So, Right to Life of Michigan did what we do best, and that's take advantage of Michigan's constitutional provision that allows citizens to initiate legislation.

Right to Life of Michigan's grassroots army of unpaid volunteers pounded the pavement and obtained more than 333,000 signatures in under 100 days to initiate our parental consent legislation. Approximately 192,000 valid signatures of registered voters were needed. With the legislation initiated, it was passed by large margins in the Legislature on September 12, 1990. The House vote was 61 to 40, and the Senate vote was 28 to 9. Because of the initiative process, Governor Blanchard was cut out of the process, just like he was cut out of the 1988 ban on tax-funded abortions in Michigan. Our bill became law!

Minor teen abortions in Michigan dropped from 3,820 in 1990 to 791 in 2016. It's difficult to figure out how much of that decrease is solely due to our legislation, but that's definitely thousands of lives saved over the years thanks to something simple like allowing parents to be involved with their children. The abortion industry can no longer count on roping-in scared youth for hundreds of dollars in cash each. Our law protects the rights of parents, vulnerable youth, and unborn children.

While that was an important victory, Governor Blanchard was still a large roadblock to additional life-saving progress. His opponent in the 1990 gubernatorial election, John Engler, was prolife, but a lot of smart politicos and reporters were writing his campaign off as hopeless. The prolife movement did not write him off and we pounded the pavement again.

On the Sunday before election day, a Detroit News poll had Governor Blanchard running away with victory with a 14-point advantage over John Engler. The only poll that mattered was the one on Election Day, however, and Engler beat Blanchard by a razor-thin margin of 17,595 votes out of more than 2.5 million cast; that's less than a single percentage point. Engler's victory stunned state and national media.

Engler and his running mate, committed prolifer Connie Binsfeld, would finally welcome the prolife agenda to Lansing for the first time in our history. Once again, prolife grassroots provided the edge that made the difference, which is every bit as true today as it was in 1990.

Governor Blanchard once remarked that you can only tell the same group "no" so many times, referring to our grassroots organization. True.

Honoring 50 years of prolife advocacy in Michigan
1972: The Voice of the Unborn
1979: Michigan Citizens for Life
1981: First Media Campaign
1988: Medicaid-Funded Abortions Ban

Facebook shuts down Michigan prolifers again

Wexford/Missaukee Right to Life, an affiliate of Right to Life of Michigan, discovered on October 4 that their Facebook advertising account had been shut down without explanation.

This is the third time this year Michigan prolife organizations have had their Facebook advertising accounts summarily banned. Right to Life of Michigan's advertising account has been banned twice without cause in 2017, but was restored thanks to media scrutiny.

Right to Life of Michigan President Barbara Listing said, "Facebook's self-described mission is to, 'give people the power to build community...' It's hard to do that when community organizations have tools taken away from them without an explanation. Unfortunately many local organizations don't have the resources we did to demand an explanation and receive a solution."

Wexford/Missaukee Right to Life has not been given any specific details about what caused the ban. They were not directly informed their account had been banned; they only discovered the ban when attempting to purchase additional advertising.

Similar to the ban of Right to Life of Michigan's advertising account, Facebook's support team refused to answer specific questions and instead sent a vague form response. On October 4 Wexford/Missaukee Right to Life was told by Facebook, "There's no further action you may take here. We don't support ads for your business model."

Wexford/Missaukee Right to Life has the exact same "business model" as Right to Life of Michigan and our other local affiliates who utilize Facebook advertising. Their "business model" was never in question for earlier advertising purchases.

Right to Life of Michigan in April was similarly told our ban was a final decision beyond appeal, but after a Detroit News reporter contacted Facebook for details in May, our advertising account was restored. Facebook told the Detroit News the ban was a mistake and that they had contacted Right to Life of Michigan to inform us of the resolution. Facebook has not contacted us to this day to explain how the mistake occurred.

Right to Life of Michigan's advertising account was again shut down a few days after our account was restored in May, but a support request including a link to the Detroit News article led to the account being quickly reinstated.

Listing said, "We achieved no results working through Facebook's customer service department and the Better Business Bureau. Facebook only appears to respond to media attention to fix what they claim is a simple mistake."

In 2016 Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with conservative leaders who expressed fear that they would be victims of censorship following an accusation that Facebook staff members were blocking legitimate political pages based on personal biases. After the meeting Zuckerberg said, "I wanted to hear their concerns personally and have an open conversation about how we can build trust."

Listing said, "Are these bans automated? Does a human being respond to questions from users? Does Facebook think they can get away with censoring smaller pages and users because they can't draw attention? These are questions Facebook must respond to if they truly want to build community trust."

Right to Life of Michigan is calling on Facebook to be more transparent. They must do a better job of communicating with users who make good-faith attempts to abide by their guidelines.

Abortion is not the most common medical procedure

As abortion supporters struggle to fight against rising prolife momentum nationwide, some have turned away from glossing over abortion with statements like “safe, legal and rare.” Instead some are beginning to make statements like “I love abortion.” They think being disingenuous about abortion is ceding the broader argument to prolifers, and so embracing abortion as a positive good will remove the “stigma” from it.

One tactic used to bolster their argument is to claim that abortion is one of the most common medical procedures. Some go so far to say it’s the most common medical procedure for women in America. It’s doubtful that claim will remove the stigma from abortion, because it’s hard to really have a person watch something like a late-term abortion and have them believe it’s perfectly acceptable, much less lovable.

While there are certainly a tragically large number of abortions in America, is their claim true? Is abortion the most common medical procedure in America?

First, some definitions. A surgical procedure is a medical procedure, but not all medical procedures are surgical procedures. It’s important to mention this for two reasons. On one hand, most people making this claim about abortion probably have surgery in mind. On the other hand, many abortion supporters frequently claim abortion is completely different from common outpatient surgeries. They do this because they don’t want clinics that provide outpatient surgical abortions to be regulated as outpatient facilities or ambulatory surgical centers.

Now, let’s get into some numbers. There are just under 1 million induced abortions every year in America, including surgical and medical abortions. Here’s a list of medical procedures in hospitals that were performed more than 1 million times each in 2010: blood transfusions, vaccinations, intubations/ventilations, episiotomy repairs, diagnostic cardiac catheterizations, c-sections, upper G-I endoscopies/biopsies, and circumcisions. That’s not even mentioning common things that are medical procedures, for example, intravenous fluid replacement.

Let’s get really specific here. What about outpatient surgical procedures for women? Is abortion the most common outpatient medical procedure for women? Here’s a list of outpatient procedures performed more than 1 million times each a year on just women: spinal canal injections, eyelid operations, cataract replacements, and lower G-I endoscopies. Again, this list doesn’t include common medical procedures for women provided in outpatient settings. For example, there are tens of millions of pap tests every year.

If we listed out every "medical procedure" more common than abortion, you’d stop reading. In 2010 there were 46 million in-patient surgeries and 53 million outpatient surgeries in the U.S. Surgical abortions are small subset of that large total.

Let’s just look at Planned Parenthood’s statistics. They do about 320,000 abortions every year, and they claim this is just three percent of their services (which it really isn’t). So, the leader of the abortion movement itself claims abortion is uncommon in their clinics, even though they are the country's largest abortion provider.

So, which is it abortion supporters? Abortion organizations will probably continue to fight over whether to say abortions are rare/tragic or common/lovable, and then no doubt they’ll decide which statistic is the one that will be repeated over and over in media coverage.

We do concede there are a lot of abortions. Abortion would be the number-one cause of death, if it counted. There have been more abortions committed in the Black community than every cause of death combined since 1973. Facts are important, but we all need to get them right.

Ultimately, every claim abortions supporters make has one common purpose: distract from the key truth that abortion takes the life of an innocent child. One thing they’ll never want to talk about—no matter how popular they try to make abortion—is what an abortion actually does to an unborn child.

Who's That Senator? Episode 2

Debbie Stabenow loves spending her time in Washington, D.C., sending your tax dollars to the abortion industry. What happens when you call her out on it?

Learn more about Senator Debbie Stabenow's record of putting human lives in jeopardy.

Even when we give out free healthcare, pro-abortion groups still attack us

Going on today, from October 23-27, abortion organizations are pushing a national campaign using the hashtag #ExposeFakeClinics. An article at The Federalist highlights their campaign. Their hope is to end the "deception" that surrounds pregnancy resource centers and discredit their efforts to help women in need.

This argument isn’t new. It is something that they have been pushing for a long time, but we know that these claims are completely false.

All over the state of Michigan there are pregnancy resource centers that work with expectant and new mothers. These centers work with these mothers who are often scared, alone and have nowhere else to go for support. Through local donations and support they are able to help provide these women with important resources like ultrasounds, counseling, and some of them will even help these mothers find housing.

Their services even go outside of that with many of them providing free pregnancy and STI testing as well. Their missions are to help preserve life through empowering women. After the baby is born these centers still work with the mothers. They help them find childcare, diapers, clothing and even things as simple as a car seat to take the baby home from the hospital. They are truly and tirelessly dedicated to helping women in need.

Even though they help provide women (and some men) with all of these services for free, abortion supporters still use strong and false rhetoric to the contrary. Abortion supporters want to paint these help centers as illegitimate, even though they are fulfilling a legitimately large public need.

You might expect that groups that claim to be "pro-woman" would want to support these clinics that are helping women. Instead pro-abortion groups want to lie to poor women in need, sending them a message that not only is abortion the right option for them, but pregnancy help centers are really not there to help them at all.

In the eyes of the pro-abortion movement, there is nothing that prolife people can do right. Even giving free ultrasounds, diapers and supplies to new and expecting mothers makes them angry. Last week they were upset that a prolife lawyer was defending a rape victim. This week it is fighting against organizations that help women.

In the end, these attacks are not about what we say or do, they are because we believe the unborn child is a human person who deserves care and protection.

Remembering Dr. Joe Kincaid

We are sad to announce that Dr. Joseph Kincaid passed away unexpectedly on Friday. Dr. Kincaid's life is our history. Dr. Kincaid devoted nearly half a century to working to defend the life of the unborn child.

Dr. Kincaid founded Kalamazoo Right to Life in 1970, the first large-scale prolife group in Michigan. Kalamazoo Right to Life and other local groups founded by committed advocates for the unborn coalesced together to successfully fight off an attempt to legalize abortion in 1972. Following the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton a few weeks later, these local groups truly came together to create Right to Life of Michigan, then called Michigan Citizens for Life.

Dr. Kincaid served on the board of Right to Life of Michigan for decades as a founding member. At one point he served as the executive vice president of the board. He continued to serve on the board of Kalamazoo Right to Life until his death on Friday.

The last time many of us saw Dr. Kincaid was at our annual Conference in Kalamazoo a few weeks ago. Dr. Kincaid was such a committed volunteer that it was strange to not see him at a prolife event. He did not let anything be an obstacle to sacrificing his time to help restore legal protection to the unborn child. If you were out-of-state at a national prolife event like the National Right to Life Convention and ran into Joe, you weren't surprised he was there. He is an excellent example of how blessed the prolife movement is to have grassroots individuals willing to always be there for the unborn child.

He often used his medical expertise as a foundation for communicating about the value of all human life. He frequently wrote publicly about the issue of abortion in the pages of his hometown Kalamazoo Gazette. He helped defeat efforts to legalize doctor-prescribed suicide in Michigan in the 1990s.

Many Michiganders are alive today thanks to Dr. Kincaid's efforts over many years, yet likely none of those individuals are aware of the role he played in saving their lives.

Requiescat in pace.

Dr. Joe Kincaid's obituary

Rewire slams prolifer for helping rape survivor

If you haven’t been following the news, a Sanilac County judge granted custody to a convicted rapist for a child he conceived following the 2008 abduction, torture, and rape of a young girl. Years later the mother was trying to get some federal aid for her son when her story turned into a legal battle against her attacker. Thankfully Tuesday the same judge who ruled for joint legal custody overturned his decision.

This is something that should have never been a problem to begin with, especially because in Michigan we already have a law on the books called the Rape Survivor Child Custody Act. This law was put into place in 2016 to allow rape survivors to terminate the parental rights of their attacker, even if the rapist was not convicted. A mother can go to court and terminate the rapists parental rights using a "clear and convincing evidence" standard, the same used for child abuse or neglect in custody hearings

Instead of focusing on the victory for this rape survivor and mother, the pro-abortion news website Rewire attacked the lawyer who took her case. Rewire writer Imani Gandy posted a story bashing her lawyer, Rebecca Kiessling, for also being a prolife speaker.

Rebecca herself was conceived in rape and offered to represent the mother pro bono. Raised in a loving adoptive household, Rebecca learned the truth about her biological parents and has since become an outspoken supporter of life. She has long stood up for the rights of children conceived in rape and rape survivors. She even created an organization dedicated to telling their stories and advocating for their rights called Save the 1.

Gandy tried to discredit Rebecca, arguing that Rebecca tried to make this case about something other than the mother's situation. She said that Rebecca’s defense of life is built on a straw man argument and that all mothers deserve to have the choice to abort their babies. Gandy doesn't even consider the effect that abortion might have on a woman who has already gone through something as traumatic as being sexually assaulted. Gandy even suggested that Rebecca pushes her beliefs on women using "junk science." In reality, many women pregnant following a sexual assault don't want abortions, and it's not "junk science."

Gandy gets the whole story wrong for one important reason, however. The mother in this case called us asking for help. She didn't call Rewire, which holds itself out as the champion for justice and women's health, and speaks of us as some den of crazed ideologues. When we got the call, the first person who came to mind was Rebecca. Rebecca was perfectly suited to know how to move forward to protect this mother and her son, because she's "been there, done that." Thankfully Rebecca decided to provide legal help herself and won the case. She did generate media coverage in this case, but it was sorely needed to let the prosecutor and judge know that there would be consequences if they continued to sleepwalk through this mother's case, delivering her son into the hands of a rapist.

Ultimately all Rebecca did was give this mother the opportunity to be heard—an opportunity she sought us out for. There's no need to "beware" of that, Rewire. Where's your nonjudgmental support for the choice of the woman in this case? Isn't that what Rewire stands for, affirming every choice a woman makes? We'll guess that Gandy won't want to hear what the mother chooses to say after this ordeal is finally over.

Rebecca has been a strong and tireless advocate for woman who have gone through the traumatic experience of rape. Her hard work has been able to bring together people from all over the world and helped get legislators around the country to face situation like this mother in Sanilac County experienced. Her selflessness to win a victory for a young woman and her son pro-bono should be commended, not dismissed.

Car trunk abortionist pleads no contest to three felonies

Yesterday long-time Michigan abortionist Michael Roth pleaded no contest to three felonies in Macomb County Circuit Court. The convictions stem from his suspected practice of illegal at-home abortions.

Right to Life of Michigan President Barbara Listing said, “These convictions should spell the end of his medical license. Unfortunately felonies haven’t always stopped abortionists from working in Michigan in the past.”

Roth’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for December 7. Roth is still facing other criminal charges including identity theft and possession with intent to deliver the schedule 2 narcotic Fentanyl.

In September 2015 Roth was involved in an accident in West Bloomfield, Mich., when his car struck a 31-year-old man with special needs. Police found medical equipment, controlled substances, and tissue from aborted babies in the trunk of his car. Police found additional evidence during a later search of his home.

Listing said, “Roth is the face of abortion in America. He is just one of many examples of felons, crooks and quacks who continue to work in the abortion industry today.”

Roth stole drugs and equipment from his former employer Angel Ojeda, an abortionist who runs the Eastland Women’s Center in Eastpointe, Michigan. Given Roth’s previous history of performing abortions in women’s homes in 1998 and 1999, it is reasonable to believe he was committing illegal at-home abortions.

The Michigan Board of Medicine suspended Roth’s license on September 13 for a year and fined him $25,000 for unlawful possession of a controlled substance.

Right to Life of Michigan released a report in 2012, Abortion Abuses and State Regulatory Agency Failure, including several of Roth’s violations. In addition to his at-home abortions, Roth was disciplined in 2002 for drug-related violations, including prescribing drugs without a license. He was disciplined in 2004 for violating patient consent laws and was accused of falsifying medical records by a former employee and performing illegal late-term abortions.

In 2012 Roth received six months of probation and was ordered to pay a $15,000 fine for Public Health Code violations involving botched abortions.

Listing said, “Planned Parenthood and government officials who support abortion provided the cover that allowed him to operate. Who in their right mind would allow this man to continue to practice for decades after so many violations? Where were those self-proclaimed advocates for women’s health on this?”

Roth’s most recent abortion business, the bizarrely-named Novi Laser and Aesthetic Center, was closed in 2014.

The Prolife Omnibus Act in 2012 significantly strengthened oversight of the abortion industry in Michigan. Since passage of the law 16 abortion businesses in the state have closed, many due to substandard practices.

Listing said, “The worst of the worst were quickly driven out of business in Michigan following passage of our Prolife Omnibus Act, but Roth is an example of how dangerous sub-standard abortionists are still out there and allowed to practice.”

Michigan’s Rape Survivor Child Custody Act put to the test

***UPDATE: On October 17 Judge Ross reversed his order and terminated the parental rights of the rapist***

A widely-reported case in Sanilac County has led to the first known court case involving Michigan's Rape Survivor Child Custody Act of 2016. The Act increased legal protection for rape survivors facing child custody cases.

Sanilac County Circuit Court Judge Gregory S. Ross granted joint legal custody of an eight-year-old child to a man convicted of attempted third degree criminal sexual conduct against the child's mother. The mother is challenging the ruling and a hearing is scheduled for October 25.

Right to Life of Michigan President Barbara Listing said, "This case is exactly why we passed this law. When we became aware of this hole in Michigan law, the need to fill it became glaring."

Prior to passage of the Rape Survivor Child Custody Act, termination of parental rights in Michigan involving a child conceived in rape required a felony rape conviction. Felony rape convictions are often difficult to obtain, however.

The Rape Survivor Child Custody Act now allows rape survivors who become pregnant from assault to terminate the parental rights of their attacker under a "clear and convincing" evidence standard without the necessity of a criminal conviction. "Clear and convincing" is the same evidentiary standard used in custody cases involving suspected child abuse or neglect.

The sex offender in this case, Christopher Mirasolo, was convicted in 2008 of attempted rape in a plea deal. He served less than a year in jail. In the eyes of the law, the child was not conceived in rape because Mirasolo was only found guilty of an attempted rape.

Right to Life of Michigan was contacted about the case and the mother was immediately referred to Michigan attorney Rebecca Kiessling. Kiessling was conceived in rape and is an internationally-known prolife speaker. Her organization Save the 1 advocates for legal protection of children conceived in rape, incest, or who have special needs. Kiessling is representing the mother pro bono.

Listing said, "We often get calls asking for legal help in a variety of situations. For this call we had just the right law and the right assistance in place to help this mother facing this terrible legal situation."

The Rape Survivor Child Custody Act came about following Right to Life of Michigan's Compassion Project campaign in 2015 highlighting the issue of rape and abortion. One of the four women who participated in the Compassion Project, Shauna, faced a similar situation. Shauna became pregnant following an assault. Her attacker filed for custody of her daughter to induce Shauna to drop the charges against him. Shauna has worked in other states to change their laws to be more protective of rape survivors.

Kiessling helped connect Right to Life of Michigan with Shauna and other women involved in the Compassion Project. Their stories are also featured in the 30-minute documentary "Life Uninvited," which first aired in January 2016.

The Rape Survivor Child Custody Act was passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities in 2016. The Michigan Senate passed it unanimously and the final Michigan House vote was 101 to 4.

Listing said, "It's unfortunate that politics surrounding rape and abortion often results in real women and children with serious issues being ignored. Without Shauna and Rebecca educating people about this issue, the mother in this case could be forced to live with her rapist having legally-protected access to her child."

Mourning Chris MacDonald, a truly special lady

Monday morning Right to Life of Michigan staff received truly terrible news: a staff member had passed away Sunday evening.

Christine MacDonald had served as the manager for our Wayne County Resource Center for nearly 20 years. Chris didn’t really manage the resource center; she was the resource center. Chris passionately worked in her community with a servant’s heart. Her impact on lives will be felt for generations to come.

Chris’ family was very important to her. She was a beloved wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She was always there to serve the affiliates in her area, especially Upper Downriver Right to Life. She was always reaching out to people to share important prolife news and information with them. She was always a willing listener for those who would visit her center. She was active in her community and engaging everyone she met in the cause of honoring life.

Wyandotte is quite far from our Grand Rapids headquarters, yet most of our staff members were very familiar with Chris. Chris frequently sent messages to staff wishing them a happy birthday or to give them kind words before leaving on a vacation. It didn’t take long for people to realize what a genuine person she was.

Chris’ final day on Earth was in service to protecting the lives of innocent children. Sunday was Respect Life Sunday, which meant prolifers in her area were taking part in the annual Life Chain, reaching members of their community with prolife messages. Chris always held an open house at her resource center to welcome and serve the Life Chain participants. Of course the day she died was no exception, and Chris hosted her open house, one final time.

The last thing Chris did was serve her fellow prolifers. That is a perfect tribute explaining who Chris was and the hole she will leave in her community.

Please pray for comfort for Chris’ entire family, as they mourn her sudden passing.

Requiescat in pace, Chris.

Chris’ Obituary & Service Information

Cosmo goes after Michigan prolifers

Pro-abortion writer Jill Filipovic wrote an article for Cosmopolitan yesterday taking prolifers in Michigan to task for not getting engaged in the Flint water crisis, because the crisis appears to have led to an increase in miscarriages.

While the Flint water crisis is a useful tool for framing her point, her main point is really just the common refrain that prolife people aren't really concerned about life; our main motivation in her mind is that we're freaked out by working women. That's ridiculous. Right to Life of Michigan has been run by full-time working women longer than Jill Filipovic has been alive.

Rather than just respond to her real argument—that deep down every prolife person is just prolife because they need to repress women—we'll be good sports and engage her on Flint first. Filipovic lives in Nairobi, Kenya, and so she doesn't have the benefit of knowing details about the situation on the ground.

The most important underlying issue in Flint is that several critical trends have left Flint with half of the current population they had in the 1960s. This economic disaster had led to many ongoing calamities. Right to Life of Michigan simply isn't equipped to confront trends like automation in manufacturing or globalization. Most of the groups involved in assisting Flint in the water crisis aren't directly engaged on those foundational causes either. Nor should they be; they should stay in their lanes of expertise.

The water crisis itself came about because Flint switched their water from Detroit's system to their own river in preparation for using a new, cheaper source. Flint's infrastructure in the city wasn't equipped to handle the change-over, causing lead to leech into the water. Following the crisis there's a raft of criminal accusations involving government officials botching their basic duties to their constituents.

Right to Life of Michigan is not involved in civil engineering, environmental quality, urban planning, or any of the many fields involved in the water crisis. We are not Attorney General Bill Schuette or the Environmental Protection Agency, who are charged with sorting out the mess. None of these important issues involve anything we have educational or legislative experience on.

Is Filipovic right, though? Should we be involved in civil engineering, environmental quality, and urban planning, because failures in those areas have led to a situation that has increased the number of miscarriages in Flint? Let's assume the answer is yes. Our question, then, is why is nobody else ever held to this standard Filipovic wants to apply to us?

If every human life has equal value, organizations involved in Flint ought be to devoting at least some of their time to abortion, using Filipovic's logic. In 2015, the MI Dept. of Health and Human Services reported 1,301 abortions in Genesee County, and 1,081 estimated miscarriages. Miscarriages in Flint are tragic, and there are people working to address them. Abortions are even more tragic because it's purposeful, direct taking of human life, so shouldn't more people focus on that? Why does nobody ever demand civil engineers, environmentalists and urban planners speak out about abortion?

Now, you might object, abortion has nothing to do with getting clean water to the people of Flint. That's basically our entire point, isn't it? But there is an indirect connection that goes the other way. Thousands of abortions have exacerbated the very problem that caused the Flint water crisis. The main reason Flint couldn't afford Detroit's water system is because thousands of taxpayers are missing. A shrinking population is robbing the city of future bond money and other economic growth opportunities, leaving a city government with few good options and human capital to solve so many problems.

Why does nobody ever ask other groups what they are doing about abortion? The Michigan Environmental Council currently lists 63 separate member organizations on their website. What are any of these groups doing about abortion? How many advocacy groups in Michigan are involved in ending abortion? The list is quite small.

Why does nobody ever demand soup kitchens get involved with the American Cancer Society? Diet plays a role in cancer. Why does nobody demand Mothers Against Drunk Driving get involved in heart disease? Heart disease is the leading cause of death of mothers. Why aren't gun control groups involved in Flint? Don't they believe the lives of Flint citizens matter? The American Cancer Society has nothing on Flint on their website. Don't they care that lead is a probable carcinogen?

This is silly. Each of those groups have identified a particular set of problems, and they develop expertise and engage people in those problems. A soup kitchen shouldn't be involved in dealing with manufacturing job losses; their job is to feed the hungry people, even if those people went hungry because they lost their manufacturing job. There's a million other people out there fighting over job creation, but none of them are there handing out soup on Main Street.

The fantastical notion that prolife groups need to become political parties and engage on every policy issue only exists because the issue involved is abortion. Filipovic doesn't want to talk about abortion or basic human rights, because that focuses on the uncomfortable reality that abortion kills human beings using brutal violence. She says it herself in her column, "And so the focus on the fetus gets ratcheted up, and the debate turns on the right to life rather than a woman’s right to her physical self." Abortion is basically indefensible, so the best way to make the case for abortion is to point at someone or something else and hope nobody notices what goes on inside abortion clinics.

Abortion is the number one cause of death in America, if it counted. Abortion has helped to devastate Flint's heavily minority population. In Michigan, Black women have a majority of abortions, 50.5%, even though the state is only 14% Black. More Black lives have been lost to abortions since 1973 than every other cause of death combined. That's appalling. What's Filipovic doing about that? Is she bothered by this racial disparity?

What motivates prolifers? It's no mystery. It's as simple as this: stop killing babies!

Ultimately, nothing we say or do will appease Filipovic or make her write nice things about us, because ultimately we believe every human life has value. Prolifers will never be taken seriously by people who believe unborn children have zero human rights. It's easier for them to picture us as heartless villains than focus on the hearts they stop every day in their own clinics.

Do you remember when prolife presidential candidate Ted Cruz came to Flint to supply the prolife pregnancy centers in town with water to hand out to residents? Pro-abortion groups and media folk savaged Cruz for it. Prolifers are not even allowed to help the very women they claim we want to oppress.

Contrary to the news reported out there in Kenya, Michigan has been absolutely consumed and is still very engaged with the Flint water crisis. That's OK. It's a legitimate public health crisis. Public health groups in Michigan have a duty to be engaged on something that impacts their issues. We'll let more knowledgeable organizations work on their own issues, without demanding they drop their important work on focus on us. As long as abortion remains the number one killer in America, however, can't you agree it deserves at least one group focused on it?

Ultimately this is not about Flint for Filipovic. This is about Filipovic's own mistaken beliefs on what motivates prolife people. If your real argument is that a movement largely run by women really hates women, maybe you are better off talking about something real, like people suffering in Flint because the many organizations and agencies responsible for handling the issue utterly dropped the ball.

Maybe Filipovic should follow Senator Ted Cruz's example and hop on a plane from Kenya, skip New York, and at least do as much for Flint as he did before maligning all prolifers everywhere.

Do You Know Debbie Stabenow?

U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow's record puts innocent lives in jeopardy. Below are examples of how her voting record fails to live up the important standard that every human life has value and deserves legal protection. Click on each link to learn more about her record.

PARENTAL CONSENT - Stabenow voted against legislation requiring minor children to receive parental consent before having abortions. She has voted to allow children to be smuggled over state lines to avoid parental consent laws.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD - Stabenow voted against efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, and even voted to give them $1 billion in additional taxpayer funds simply because they perform abortions.

FREE SPEECH - Stabenow voted to rescind portions of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, potentially criminalizing educational posts just like this.

ABORTION ON DEMAND - Stabenow voted in favor of partial-birth abortions and believes abortion should be legal throughout pregnancy, even during the process of birth.

DOCTOR-PRESCRIBED SUICIDE - Stabenow voted to allow doctor-prescribed suicide in Michigan as Jack Kevorkian was traveling around the state euthanizing people with the eventual goal of performing live experiments on dying patients.

CONSCIENCE RIGHTS - Stabenow voted to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for abortion-inducing drugs against their will, and voted to force people to purchase insurance plans that cover abortions.

TAX-FUNDED ABORTIONS - Stabenow voted to force prolife people to fund elective abortions with their tax dollars.

FUNDING ABORTION OVERSEAS - Stabenow voted to fund organizations that provide and promote abortions overseas, inclduing organizations engaged in coercive population control programs.

FLYER (PDF)

Down syndrome and the abortion debate

A topic that frequently gets overlooked was brought to the attention of many thanks to 60 Minutes. In August they aired a special on how Iceland has almost completely eliminated Down syndrome in their country. In the special they implied this as a huge medical accomplishment and an even bigger advancement for science. What they didn’t tell you was that Down syndrome hadn’t been eliminated: babies with Down syndrome were being killed off through abortion.

Discrimination against people with Down syndrome isn’t new. For years many women have been encouraged by their physicians to have testing while they are pregnant to check for an array birth defects. Often when birth defects are diagnosed the women are pressured to have abortions.

These innocent human beings are being killed without their consent simply because their lives are thought by some to be not worth living. A 1998 study from Wayne State University found that 87% of unborn children diagnosed with Down syndrome were aborted.

Down syndrome babies aren’t the only ones being targeted. From 2002 to 2010 in the United Kingdom twenty-six children diagnosed with cleft lips or palates—conditions that are correctable by surgery—were aborted because of their disabilities. Those children would have had the opportunity to live out a completely normal life, but instead they were aborted.

While the majority of abortions are done for purely social or economic reasons, the fact that there are high numbers of abortions being done on babies with birth defects raises troubling questions about how we as a society are caring for the most sick and vulnerable.

Disabled individuals, no matter what age or status, are human beings worthy of protection. To say a disabled person is less of a human being diminishes the respect for every human life. The value of life does not depend on looks or abilities. There is innate dignity in every human life.

ABORTION AND DISABILITIES FACTSHEET (PDF)

A look back at 50 years: 1988

This is the fourth entry in a monthly series we’ll be running throughout 2017 looking back at historically significant profile moments in our state’s history.

There's only so many times you can say "no." That's a lesson former Michigan Governor Jim Blanchard had to learn the hard way, though not without a tragic cost of human lives.

Michigan's ban on Medicaid-funded abortions is perhaps the most important piece of prolife legislation Right to Life of Michigan has ever initiated. It was also perhaps the most difficult legislation to pass.

In 1977 the U.S. Supreme Court handed down decisions in Maher v. Roe and Beal v. Doe upholding state laws restricting Medicaid-funded abortions. With this new avenue open, Right to Life of Michigan began pushing to end tax-funded abortions in Michigan. It took nearly a decade for us to succeed.

Two large roadblocks were pro-abortion Michigan governors Bill Milliken and Jim Blanchard. They issued a combined 17 vetoes of legislation to end tax-funded abortions. Thankfully the Michigan Constitution has a way for the people to override a governor's veto using citizen-initiated legislation. Citizens can collect enough petition signatures to initiate veto-proof legislation in the Legislature.

In February 1987, Right to Life of Michigan launched the petition drive to end tax-funded abortions. Approximately 192,000 signatures needed to be collected within 180 days in order to initiate the legislation. Our grassroots collected about 460,000 signatures in 83 days. Both the Michigan House and Senate approved the law in June 1987 (Public Act 59), cutting Governor Jim Blanchard out of the picture entirely.

Michigan's law does come with a caveat. Opponents of citizen-initiated legislation can collect their own signatures and force a public vote over the new law. Abortion supports in Michigan collected about 220,000 signatures, putting our new ban on Medicaid-funded abortions on the ballot in 1988. On November 8, 1988, the people of Michigan voted 57% to 43% to retain the ban. The margin of victory was enough to send a loud message to abortion supporters than Michiganders would not tolerate being forced to pay for elective abortions.

The effects of the law are simply awe-inspiring. In 1988 there were 46,747 reported abortions in Michigan. In 1989, with the Medicaid abortion funding ban in place, reported abortions dropped to 36,557. That's more than 10,000 lives saved in a single year! The ban has been in place for more than 28 years now. How many more lives have been saved since then? As many as 280,000? More? The human cost of abortion is so high that simple things like respecting the conscience rights of citizens can also save lives on a gargantuan scale.

Michigan grassroots prolifers should be confident that their actions have saved lives and continue to save lives on a daily basis. If we had given up 50 years ago, then hundreds of thousands of our family members, friends and neighbors would not be with us today. Those missing people would have been killed at taxpayer expense, and nearly all of them are blissfully unaware that Michigan prolifers are the reason they are alive today.

How many more people would be alive today had governors Milliken and Blanchard not stood in the way of the Medicaid-funded abortion ban for nearly a decade? 100,000? That should be a humbling reminder that elections have extremely dire consequences.

In 1989 our ban was challenged in court. Abortion supporters know they can often rely on biased judges to overturn the will of voters. In 1991 a three-judge panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to block the ban as unconstitutional. The two judges invented a right to tax-funded abortions in the Michigan Constitution, something even the pro-abortion majority on the U.S. Supreme Court wasn't willing to invent in the U.S. Constitution. The court challenge was ended by the Michigan Supreme Court in 1992 by a 5-2 vote, ensuring the law, the voters, and the lives of hundreds of thousands of Michiganders prevailed over the personal whims of two abortion supporters wearing black robes.

Visit our blog in October for our next notable moment in Michigan history in 1990, when Governor Jim Blanchard learned his lesson.

Honoring 50 years of prolife advocacy in Michigan
1972: The Voice of the Unborn
1979: Michigan Citizens for Life
1981: First Media Campaign

Sen. Stabenow's record on funding overseas abortion

U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow has a long record of supporting efforts to export abortions.

Stabenow has voted numerous times against the Mexico City Policy. The policy prevents tax dollars from going to organizations that provide or promote abortions in foreign countries. The policy was first enacted in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan, and has been repealed and reinstated by pro-abortion or prolife presidents since then. Stabenow's most recent vote against the Mexico City Policy was January 28, 2009. President Obama had rescinded the Mexico City Policy and an effort by Congress to restore it failed.

As we pointed out in a earlier post, Stabenow voted against the Kemp-Kasten Amendment in 2007. The law prevents the United States from funding coercive population control organizations overseas that include forced abortions or forced sterilization.

In 2009 the U.S. House voted to exempt the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) from the Kemp-Kasten Amendment. In effect, the language would say it's OK in the case of the UNFPA for taxpayer dollars to go to an organization that has participated in coercive population control in China. In the U.S. Senate an attempt was made to remove the language, but it failed 39-55. Senator Stabenow voted to send tax dollars to the UNFPA.

The UNFPA has been involved in Chinese population control for decades, including publicly praising their efforts. China's one-child policy (now two-child policy) has resulted in numerous gross human rights abuses. For decades Chinese women who became pregnant with a second child were subjected to forced abortions, violence, or heavy fines. The abuses in China continue today. Shortly after taking office President Trump restricted funding to the UNFPA once again.

Car trunk abortionist suspended today

Photo courtesy of MI Attorney General's Office

Today 75-year-old Michael Arthur Roth, M.D. had his medical license suspended for one year and had a fine of $25,000 imposed by the Michigan Board of Medicine disciplinary subcommittee due to unlawful possession of a controlled substance. A suspension of more than 6 months and one day requires that the physician retest prior to petitioning to have his license reinstated.

The sanctions follow an incident that occurred two years ago and for which Roth is still facing criminal charges. In September of 2015, Roth was involved in a traffic accident where he hit a special-needs man. Due to the nature of the accident, Roth’s car was impounded by police, and they discovered the bodies of 14 unborn children in containers in Roth’s trunk as well as Fentanyl—a controlled substance. The discovery led to a search of Roth’s home which uncovered still more unlawfully obtained controlled substances.

It is suspected that Roth was performing abortions on patients in at-home settings.

Roth was formally charged by the Attorney General’s office in July of 2016 with possession with intent to deliver schedule 2 narcotic Fentanyl, and six counts of identity theft, and three counts of larceny in a building. Roth’s criminal hearing is scheduled for November 27, 2017.

Roth is no stranger to sanctions and investigations. In 2004 he was disciplined by the Michigan Department of Community Health and given a 6 month probation for violation of duty/negligence. The list of violations—including previous at-home abortions—stretches back to 1997, included failing to keep accurate charts on patients, not requiring blood work before procedures and issuing prescriptions without listing the rationale.

In 2012 Roth was once again under scrutiny. He received another 6 month probation and ordered to pay a $15,000 fine for violating the state Public Health Code.

PRESS RELEASE

Sen. Stabenow's record on tax-funded abortions

In polls majorities of Americans consistently object to being forced to pay for abortions with their tax dollars.

Besides many votes in favor of tax-funding of Planned Parenthood, the nation's number one abortion provider and promoter, Senator Debbie Stabenow has supported direct taxpayer funding of abortions for a long time.

Debbie Stabenow voted as a member of the Michigan Legislature in 1987 to continue to force taxpayers to fund elective abortions through our state's Medicaid program. The ban on Medicaid abortions passed—over her objection—and was affirmed by 57 percent of Michigan voters in 1988. Abortions in Michigan dropped by 10,190 from 1988 to 1989. The Medicaid abortion ban in Michigan has saved many tens of thousands of lives since 1988, people who would not be alive today if Stabenow had succeeded.

Federally the Hyde Amendment is an annual budget rider that prevents federal taxpayer dollars from paying for most abortions. It's been enacted every year since 1976. Senator Debbie Stabenow has often voted against including the amendment in various forms in numerous pieces of legislation. She voted against including it in Obamacare, forcing taxpayers to pay for elective abortions through health insurance plans in several states.

Senator Stabenow has many other votes involving funding of abortion in different ways and programs:

• She voted to directly fund abortions in our nation's capital, the District of Columbia, in 1998.
• She voted to let abortions be performed inside federal prisons in 1999.
• She voted to cover abortions for federal employees through their health insurance in 2000.
• She voted to let abortions be performed inside our nation's military hospitals several times, most recently in 2003.
• She voted to fund abortions through the Indian Health Service in 2008

Abortion comes first, then come the arguments

Have you ever noticed how simple the prolife message is? Unborn children are human beings, and killing innocent human beings is wrong. Have you ever noticed how convoluted arguments for abortion are? What do violinists and artificial wombs have to do with abortion?

Vox recently published an article about the recent advances in creating an artificial womb. It isn’t used yet on humans, but new experiments are being done on lambs and seeing some success.

The author, Harvard Professor I. Glenn Cohen, considers this scientific development and how it might effect arguments for abortion. He poses the question: “Could anti-abortion laws require pregnant women whose fetuses are not yet viable to transfer the fetus to a nurturing site outside the body, possibly by way of minimally invasive surgery?” Could artificial wombs end the justification for abortion?

According to Cohen, there are three types of parents: gestational parents, legal parents, and genetic parents. He believes a woman can't be forced to be a gestational parent and has the right to stop gestating (carrying) the fetus to term. He also believes laws can’t force legal parenthood on a woman. Artificial wombs counter these two arguments, meaning women don't have to continue gestating children, and the children could be adopted.

Abortion supporters shouldn't worry about artificial wombs, however, because Cohen invents a new right to an abortion: the right to not be a genetic parent. Apparently you have a right to not have people related to you. Who knew? This new right means artificial wombs and the current legal justification of abortion based on viability don't matter. How convenient, right?

The author also brings up the old abortion argument of the violinist. This is a popular argument to support the legalization of abortion, despite being fatally flawed. If you don’t know, this violinist argument is a farfetched scenario where you must imagine waking up being attached to a bunch of machines against your will, and these machines are also attached to a world champion violinist, keeping him alive. Why would a sinister band of concert enthusiasts kidnap you to keep their favorite maestro playing?

The purpose of the argument is to have you think about being in this situation yourself, if you would pull the plug. Pro-abortion people argue that this situation is just like pregnancy in that you are being forced to keep someone alive against your will.

This analogy is irrelevant to reality for several important reasons, most of all that creating your own child through a voluntary act is not like a kidnapped violinist being hooked up to you. This argument creates another distraction—an interesting one at least—from what is really going on: children are being killed in the most brutal fashion.

The supposed right to abortion does not spring out of autonomy, or liberty, or the nature of the child. Do abortion supporters honestly sit down and think up how to deal with the abortion issue first and then apply those principles? Every abortion supporter starts from the place that they don’t want a baby, or someone else shouldn't be burdened with a baby. Then they think up ways to justify the unjustifiable, the same way a child rationalizes stealing a cookie from the cookie jar.

Abortion is about dead babies; the arguments are just window-dressing to make the horrendous palatable for our seemingly civilized times.

A look back at 50 years: 1981

This is the third entry in a monthly series we’ll be running throughout 2017 looking back at historically significant profile moments in our state’s history.

Our early leaders had a vision of major media advertising to help bring the prolife message into every home in Michigan. These wouldn’t just be ads for the sake of advertising, but truly memorable and impactful messages. In 1981 our first ads debuted on statewide television. Since then we’ve had many memorable ads.

The favorite of many people is our "Seed" ad. Produced in 1994, the ad contrasts the fullness of life with the emptiness of abortion. We filmed an updated version of "Seed" in 2015.

The most unique ads we’ve produced were a series in the 1990s featuring Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa didn’t just do any old TV ad on request, but she did several for us on the issue of partial-birth abortion that aired in 1997. She did that just a few years after her famous 1994 speech at the National Prayer Breakfast where she delivered a bold defense of the unborn child as a valuable member of our human family.

We recently produced our first 30-minute documentary, "Life Uninvited." The documentary grew out of our Compassion Project ads, which featured four women sharing their personal perspective and experiences with the issue of rape and abortion. Rape and abortion is a difficult issue to discuss, but these four women cut through the political noise to shine a light on their own experiences and the value of every child, no matter their circumstances.

Our ads have been critical in educating voters about important issues during election seasons. Two notable examples shine. The first are the series of ads produced in 1997 to oppose the effort to legalize doctor-prescribed suicide in our state. In July of 1998 that legalization effort was beating us in the polls, 46 percent to 42 percent. After weeks of bringing our message to the people of Michigan, the final vote was 71 percent against the suicide measure, and only 29 percent for. Our message decisively moved hundreds of thousands of Michigan voters.

The 2016 election also ended in a surprise result. We aired two TV ads, "Birthdays" and "Start with Life," addressing the issue of abortion and the importance of voting your values no prolife issues. Also accompanying the TV ads was an impactful radio ad, War on the Unborn, taken from the popular YouTube video by Peter Heck. Michigan had not voted for a prolife presidential candidate in a generation, but the state did in 2016, in dramatic fashion.

When presented clearly and compellingly, the prolife message that every human life has value can touch hearts and change minds. Ads that can do that don’t spring out of nothing. Creating them is a team effort, from identifying the need, to crafting a truly compelling message, to sometimes finding the right messenger for the message, to filming, to placing the ads strategically for maximum impact, and to raising the money to accomplish all of these necessary steps.

We have also made the effort over the years to allow our colleagues in other states to use our ads. We believe we’ve inspired many others to produce their own ads to bring the prolife message to their corner of the country.

Visit our YouTube channel to see our most recent ads, as well as some of our classics.

Visit our blog in September for our next notable moment in Michigan history in 1988.

Honoring 50 years of prolife advocacy in Michigan
1972: The Voice of the Unborn
1979: Michigan Citizens for Life

First pregnancy help grants address abortions in Detroit

Yesterday Right to Life of Michigan visited three pregnancy centers located in Detroit to award them a total of $8,970 in grants. The grants represent a step towards increasing the prolife movement’s focus on addressing the high abortion rate in the city of Detroit.

Right to Life of Michigan President Barbara Listing said, "This is a small, but very important step. Abortions continue to decline around the state, but Detroit’s abortion rate remains high. It’s a problem not being addressed, much less talked about."

VIEW PRESS RELEASE

RLM President Barbara Listing with the staff of Care Net Pregnancy Center Detroit

The grants will address several needs the centers indicated: helping with clients’ transportation costs, improving facility safety, Spanish educational materials, website development, a phone application and advertising. Grantees include Pregnancy Aid, Care Net Pregnancy Center and two of Image of God Crisis Pregnancy Center’s three locations in Detroit.

FACILITY TOUR PICTURES

In 2016 Michigan residents had 25,348 reported abortions; 6,106 of those were Detroit residents. Despite only holding seven percent of the state’s population, Detroit accounts for 24 percent of the state’s abortions. Abortions in Wayne Country are 40 percent of the state’s total. Abortion has a disparate impact on minorities, particularly the Black community. Michigan’s population is 14 percent Black, but Black women had 50.5 percent of the reported abortions in Michigan in 2016.

ABORTION STATISTICS IN MICHIGAN

There are more than 150 locations in Michigan where prolife pregnancy and adoption help agencies provide services, but only a handful are located in the city of Detroit. Many agencies around the state benefit from local Right to Life of Michigan affiliates who continue to provide volunteers to them or help with their material or advertising needs. Currently the city of Detroit has no Right to Life of Michigan affiliate within the city limits. Right to Life of Michigan will continue to develop new plans and additional actions to address abortions in Detroit and educate people about this ongoing problem.

PREGNANCY HELP SERVICES IN MICHIGAN

Announcing a new initiative addressing abortions in Detroit

Mark your calendar to join Right to Life of Michigan for a teleseminar announcing a new initiative to address abortions in the city of Detroit! The teleseminar is Wednesday, August 30, at 10:30 a.m.

Right to Life of Michigan President Barbara Listing and Administrative Associate for Multicultural Outreach Tina Teifer will introduce the new initiative and provide you with details. This new initiative is the first step to increase our focus on the persistently high abortion rates in Detroit; 40 percent of reported abortions on Michigan residents happen in just Wayne County.

Listen in to be the first to hear this announcement!

RLM Conference Director Natalie Collins will also join us to give a brief preview of our 44th Annual Conference on September 21 in Kalamazoo.

The teleseminar will last about 30 minutes and is open to all prolife people, so please feel free to share this information.

There are two ways for you to listen in:

Use your phone and call (425) 440-5010; PIN Code: 662744#
 Or, listen via the Internet: https://iTeleseminar.com/100930818

We are looking forward to speaking with you Wednesday, August 30, at 10:30 a.m.!

Sen. Stabenow's record on conscience rights

Conscience rights and religious liberty are a founding principle of the United States. They have long been protected, whether it's the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment or the tradition of exempting conscientious objectors from military service. Where does Debbie Stabenow stand on conscience rights that involve prolife issues?

Forcing the Little Sisters of the Poor to fund abortions

On March 22, 2013, U.S. Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE) offered an amendment to a budget resolution that would have stopped the Obama Administration's HHS Mandate. The mandate requires employers and individuals to pay for drugs and procedures that may cause abortions by listing those methods as "preventative health services." Debbie Stabenow voted against this amendment and the Fischer Amendment failed by a vote of 44 to 55.

This vote forced the Little Sisters of the Poor—a Catholic religious order of women dedicated to caring for the elderly poor—to seek a court order to prevent themselves from being forced to spend precious resources on purchasing abortion-inducing drugs. Numerous other organizations and individuals also filed in court to protect their conscience rights from the HHS Mandate.

In 2014 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores that the HHS Mandate violated federal law involving closely held-corporations. The Little Sisters of the Poor are not a closely-held corporation, however, and their court case continued until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 2016 in Zubik v. Burwell to require the Obama Administration to fix the HHS Mandate to protect the conscience rights of the Little Sisters and other nonprofit groups. Following the 2016 election the Trump Administration has promised to restore the conscience rights of the Little Sisters of the Poor and others.

Forcing everyone to purchase health care plans that include free abortions?

When the ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores was handed down, Debbie Stabenow and other senators sought to change federal law to force the Little Sisters of the Poor and others to purchase health insurance plans that cover drugs that may cause abortions. On July 16, 2014, the U.S. Senate took up S. 2578, which would have given the Obama Administration authority to supersede every federal law and conscience protection to force people to purchase any "preventative health service" they mandate. The bill would include superseding the Hyde Amendment, which protects taxpayers from being forced to directly pay for abortions, meaning the bill would have allowed the Obama Administration to force every insurance plan in the country to cover abortions for "free"—even late-term abortions—or doctor-prescribed suicide. Stabenow voted for S. 2578, but the bill failed to reach the 60-votes necessary to end debate.


Supporting coercive population control organizations

Since 1985 the Kemp-Kasten Amendment has prevented the United States from funding coercive population control organizations overseas that include forced abortions or forced sterilizations. For example, George W. Bush's administration restricted taxpayer funding to the United Nations Population Fund when it was revealed they were complicit in cooperating with China's One-Child Policy that involves forced abortions and sterilizations. In 2007 an attempt was made to weaken the Kemp-Kasten language in a Senate appropriations bill. On September 6, 2007, an amendment was approved to restore the Kemp-Kasten protections by a vote of 48 to 45. Debbie Stabenow opposed this effort to protect the human rights of individuals overseas and American taxpayers from being forced to help engage in coercive population control programs.

Michigan’s Safe Delivery law continues to save babies’ lives

On Monday the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services announced that the 200th infant has been surrendered under Michigan’s Safe Delivery of Newborns Act since 2001.

Michigan’s Safe Delivery law allows mothers to legally and confidentially surrender unharmed newborns to emergency service providers up to 72 hours after birth. An emergency service provider is defined as an on-duty employee of a fire department, hospital or police station.

The law was passed in response to a disturbing trend of young mothers abandoning their newborn babies in a number of dangerous places, leading to their tragic death.

Right to Life of Michigan President Barbara Listing said, “Some of these 200 infants would have ended up facing tragic fates. This prolife law has given them a chance at life along with the beautiful opportunity to be adopted into loving families.”

The Act was originally championed by State Representative Patty Birkholz and passed the Michigan Legislature by unanimous votes. It was signed into law in 2000 by Governor John Engler. In 2006 the act was updated to include responding emergency medical technicians and paramedics as emergency service providers.

Listing said, “Continuing to publicly talk about this law is critical to make sure the abandonment trend doesn’t happen again. We need to help our young women and teens be better informed about this law.”

Additional educational and promotional materials about the Safe Delivery law can be found on the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services website.

Jamerian Bennett passed away

We're very heartbroken to update you that Jamerian Bennett passed away on August 12 following a sudden brain hemorrhage. Thank you if you took the time to assist his case in any way.

Praying for Jamerian Bennett

UPDATE: Jamerian passed away on August 12. Please remember his family in your prayers.

Jamerian Bennett is a tough 9-year-old child fighting for his life at University of Michigan's Mott Children's Hospital. His mother, Brandee, is asking for prayer in their effort to find the care he needs.

We first became aware of Jamerian's case after WXYZ in Detroit published a story comparing Jamerian to Charlie Gard. Charlie died recently after the British hospital declared his life "futile" and refused to allow his parents to take him to another hospital willing to treat him. At the time it seemed a similar situation may be happening with Jamerian.

Jamerian's lungs have failed following pneumonia and a bad reaction to medication, leaving him on a lung bypass machine so his body can have oxygen. He is currently conscious but unable to speak; his condition is serious and he may need a lung transplant.

Jamerian's mother Brandee is as much as a fighter as he is, and when his situation was unsure, she went to bat for his care. After WXYZ began reporting on his case, a lawyer offered free pro-bono help to the Bennett family. Currently they are working on getting a transfer in place to an out-of-state facility that specializes in pediatric lung conditions.

Would you please consider taking a moment to pray for him and others in his situation? The family and the hospital need to work out details for a transfer and then Jamerian must make the arduous trip. If he needs a lung transplant he may have to wait for some time.

His case should be a lesson for us all. The most important thing for every person is to have a committed patient advocate like Brandee who will fight for you. After praying take a moment to consider setting up a Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare to make sure your wishes will be fought for.

We will continue to monitor Jamerian's case and offer updates, hopefully positive and soon! If you'd like updates on him you can follow his care group on Facebook.