Reproductive Freedom

DETROIT - The ACLU of Michigan, the ACLU, and the law firm Goodwin Procter today asked the Michigan Court of Appeals to overturn a lower court’s decision and reinstate our case, YWCA of Kalamazoo v. State of Michigan, a challenge to Michigan’s unjust ban on Medicaid coverage of abortion.

DETROIT – The ACLU of Michigan today sent a letter to the Walgreens drugstore chain asking for an investigation, policy changes and an apology to Kristin Tweedale and her partner, Jeffrey Kramer, who was inappropriately questioned and harassed at a Lansing store last September when he attempted to f

DETROIT – The ACLU of Michigan urges voters to cast their ballot in the Michigan Supreme Court race, following the Democratic and Republican parties finalizing their nominations for the November election at their respective conventions this weekend. The Michigan Supreme Court race is critical to the

DETROIT – The ACLU of Michigan, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the law firm Goodwin Procter filed a lawsuit today challenging Michigan’s ban on Medicaid coverage for abortion and related care.

After voters passed Proposal 3 in 2022, enshrining the fundamental right to reproductive freedom in the Michigan Constitution, the state legislature repealed some anti-abortion laws but left others in place. Among the laws that legislators failed to repeal is a 1980s-era ban on the use of state funds for abortion. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Michiganders with Medicaid insurance are unable to use their insurance to cover the cost of an abortion or any related care. The Medicaid ban creates a two-tiered system: people with higher incomes and private insurance are able to use their plans to cover the cost of an abortion, while Medicaid-eligible patients—who by definition are lower-income—are forced to come up with the funds themselves, which they may not have. The law also puts lower-income patients in harm’s way, delaying or denying their access to care and in some cases forcing them to carry a pregnancy to term. In June 2024 the ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging Michigan’s ban on Medicaid coverage for abortion care on behalf of YWCA Kalamazoo, an organization that operates a fund to help people pay for abortion care. We are arguing that the ban is unconstitutional under Michigan’s new constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to reproductive freedom. Even though the government did not initially challenge YWCA Kalamazoo’s standing to bring this lawsuit, the trial court raised the issue itself and then dismissed the lawsuit in July 2025 without addressing the merits of our claims. The court held that YWCA Kalamazoo was not sufficiently interested in the constitutionality of Michigan’s Medicaid Ban to be the plaintiff in this lawsuit. We appealed that same month and filed our opening brief in October 2025. (YWCA Kalamazoo v. State of Michigan; ACLU of Michigan Attorneys Bonsitu Kitaba-Gaviglio, Phil Mayor, and Dan Korobkin; National ACLU Attorneys Brigitte Amiri and Ryan Mendias; Cooperating Attorneys Katherine Cheng, Jessica Huang, Jenna Welsh, Jennifer Briggs Fisher and Jamie Santos of Goodwin Procter.)