Michiganders sent an emphatic message last November when the majority of voters approved Proposal 3, enshrining reproductive freedom, including the right to abortion, in the state constitution. It was a history-making victory. With anti-abortion laws still on our books, we now need the Michigan State Legislature to finish the job the voters started. 

Abortion is a constitutionally protected right in Michigan, but the fact is that access is not a reality for far too many in our state. Anti-abortion politicians spent decades passing medically unnecessary, politically motivated laws designed to push abortion out of reach. These laws only exacerbate the current disparities within the healthcare system experienced by Black and brown people, rural residents, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, people with low incomes and young people. 

One appalling result of extreme laws: North of Saginaw, there are no clinics that offer procedural abortion. As a result, patients who live in Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula need to travel for hours to seek abortion services if they are not eligible for a medication abortion. To point to one example — a woman from Houghton who needs a procedural abortion faces a seven-and-a-half-hour drive from the UP to the nearest clinic offering this service. 

Now, the Michigan Legislature must repeal these restrictive, unconstitutional laws that create barriers to abortion access and do not allow Michiganders to realize the full potential of Proposal 3 — which is intended to ensure reproductive health care is affordable and available for everyone in Michigan. 

For starters, the state Legislature must repeal what are known as “targeted restrictions on abortion providers,” or TRAP laws. These restrictions are designed to shut down abortion providers by imposing costly and medically unnecessary regulations dictating everything from the width of hallways, to the ceiling height, to the number of bathrooms available. They prevent providers from expanding care into new communities. These laws have nothing to do with safe medical care and everything to do with politics. 

Similarly, the Legislature must repeal laws that prohibit qualified clinicians such as physician’s assistants and certified nurse practitioners to provide this very safe and routine procedure, limiting abortion access in medically underserved communities. Medical experts and state licensing boards — not politicians in Lansing — should determine who can provide medical care safely, based on medical expertise and strict standards of care. 

And while pregnancy-related care is covered by Medicaid, abortion is not. State law also prohibits your private insurance plan from covering it unless you purchase separate abortion coverage. This is both punitive and cruel. It burdens many people with exorbitant healthcare bills or denies them access to this care altogether. We must remove these laws from the books because abortion access should not depend on how much money a person makes. 

To remove the burdens placed on young people who need access to reproductive health care, we must repeal Michigan’s outdated parental consent law. Most young people turn to their parents when they are pregnant. But not all young people can, often for reasons rooted in their own safety and well-being, loss of financial support, homelessness or other repercussions. Not all children have safe guardians, and legislation cannot mandate family communication. Consent laws, like the parental consent law in Michigan, harm young people, and are opposed by the American Medical Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and Society for Adolescent Medicine. As stated by the American Academy of Pediatrics, “Pediatric health clinicians should encourage adolescents to engage their parents/caregivers or a trusted adult in their decision-making around pregnancy and abortion; however, if adolescents choose not to do so, their decision should be respected.” 

​​​Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned nearly 50 years’ worth of legal protections under Roe v. Wade, anti-abortion politicians and extremists are ramping up efforts to ban abortion in every state. Their most recent attack is a legal battle to end nationwide access to mifepristone, an FDA-approved abortion pill safely used in most abortions. If the courts agree with the anti-abortion plaintiffs, the medication could become largely unavailable in Michigan. Because of the TRAP laws that remain on the books here, our state does not have enough clinics to meet the need that would arise if all patients needed procedural abortions. 

Fortunately, here in Michigan, we have both public opinion and momentum on our side. Along with a majority of voters approving the passage of Proposal 3, polling shows that Michigan voters support abortion access in higher numbers than the national average, with 66% of Michiganders believing that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Now is the time for our legislators to make this issue top priority — and do what the people elected them to do: Ensure abortion is not only legal, but actually accessible and affordable to everyone. 

Paula Thornton-Greear is president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Michigan. Sommer Foster is executive director of Michigan Voices. Loren Khogali is executive director of the ACLU of Michigan.

The Legislature Needs to Repeal Them

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision establishing a right to abortion 50 years ago, anti-abortion forces around the country began passing laws creating obstacles to a medical procedure people were legally entitled to. 

Michigan was no exception.  

Starting in 1976, laws intended to make obtaining an abortion as difficult as possible began piling up – despite increasing public support for abortion.  

Last year, in the wake to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe, Michiganders went to the polls to make clear their support for abortion by amending the state Constitution to ensure the right to obtain one would be protected here for generations to come. 

But dangerous anti-abortion laws, built up over decades, remain in place. The purpose of these laws has nothing to do with enhancing patient health and safety, and everything to do with creating needless obstacles to the procedure. 

Hardest hit have been historically disenfranchised communities, including Black, Brown, and Indigenous people, rural residents, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, young people, and people trying to make ends meet. 

The reactionary effort kicked off in 1976, when the Legislature banned public school employees from teaching abortion as a method of family planning or reproductive health.  

Some of the laws, such as government mandated counseling and a 24-hour waiting period for people seeking an abortion are intended to delay and dissuade people from getting the care they need. But as pro-abortion activist Clare Molnar explains in a video released by the ACLU of Michigan, these laws also contribute to what she describes as the terribly harmful culture of secrecy and shame surrounding abortion. 

What Ms. Molnar articulates is the implicit message many of these laws send, and the psychological impact they have on people seeking an abortion. 

“You start to think that, if they are making you jump through so many hoops to have an abortion, there must be something wrong with abortion,” says Ms. Molnar. Such laws can deter people from having an abortion. Others are left hiding from friends and family the fact that they’ve had the procedure, leaving them feeling isolated and alone.  

A more overt tactic was adopted in 2012, when anti-abortion legislators passed laws requiring providers to meet medically unnecessary and financially burdensome regulations. Known as Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws, the regulations either forced providers out of business or caused operating costs to soar, making abortions more expensive for patients. The combined effect was a decrease in access to abortions, especially for people in rural areas and trying to make ends meet. “Over the years,” according to the Ford Foundation, “as legislators enacted an array of restrictions that burdened the time, place and circumstances for abortions to be performed, clinical services became harder to find and more expensive to obtain.” 

One year after TRAP laws went into effect, the Legislature prohibited private health insurance companies from covering abortions unless individuals purchase a supplemental policy in advance of becoming pregnant.  

A requirement that minors seeking an abortion obtain the permission of either a parent or a judge is seen as downright dangerous by the medical community. The American Medical Association (AMA), the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM), the American Public Health Association (APHA), and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) are among the groups pointing out the harms parental consent laws such as Michigan’s can cause. 

“There is no law that can mandate healthy family communication,” explains the AAP. “Laws requiring parental notice or consent actually may endanger the teens they intend to protect by increasing the possibility of: delayed access to medical care, illegal and self-induced abortion, family violence, homelessness, suicide…” 

The time has long passed for the Michigan Legislature to get these and other anti-abortion laws off the books. What has changed is that, in the last election, voters elected a majority of legislators in both chambers and a governor who are supportive of reproductive rights. 

We currently have an incredible opportunity to move Michigan forward in a significant way, and must take advantage of it. 

Merissa Kovach (pronouns: she, her, hers) is the Legislative Director for the ACLU of Michigan.