This op-ed was originally published by the Detroit Free Press 08/22/23

By Amanda Mazur 

My husband and I were expecting what we hoped would be our second child in 2017 when a routine ultrasound at 20 weeks revealed potential problems — problems that quickly opened my eyes to a host of Michigan anti-abortion laws that serve no medical purpose but succeed in making access to a common medical procedure needlessly difficult, dangerous and costly. 

After consulting with specialists over the course of a couple weeks, further testing showed major heart defects and other issues so severe there was little chance I’d be able to carry my pregnancy to term, and no possibility my baby would survive if I did manage to give birth.  

The news was shocking, and heartbreaking. I needed to have an abortion. 

The other option would be to simply wait for either a stillbirth, or the birth of a child destined to die quickly. I was already experiencing depression that made it difficult to even get out of bed in the morning, let alone take care of myself or my 2-year-old daughter. I was not emotionally capable of continuing a doomed pregnancy.  

Abortion was the compassionate choice, for both myself, my family, and the child we’d hoped to have. But the clock was ticking quickly. We were forced to schedule an appointment for Christmas Day at the Von Voigtlander Women's Hospital in Ann Arbor, one of only two places in the entire state that would take me as a patient.  

After arranging overnight childcare for our daughter, we made the 160-mile drive through a terrible blizzard to Ann Arbor from our home in western Michigan. We missed opening presents with our 2-year-old on Christmas Day and seeing the joy on her face. That’s how desperate our situation was. The need to stay in a hotel overnight during the two-day procedure only added to our mounting costs. 

Read the Full op-ed on freep.com

Amanda Mazur is a Michigan resident.

This op-ed originally appeared in Bridge Michigan 08/07/23
In the fall of 2021, we discovered at a routine ultrasound appointment during my  second trimester that our baby had an abnormality called a cystic hygroma, a condition we learned was rarely survivable. It was the second piece of devastating news. A few weeks prior we’d learned that I was pregnant with twins, but the heartbeat of one had already stopped.

I knew there would be many hard moments ahead. What I didn’t anticipate is how much stress we’d have to endure over the cost of my care because of Michigan’s punitive laws regarding abortion and coverage by private insurers.  

At one point, our high-risk obstetrician urged us to hurry our decision-making process because the cost of abortion rises as pregnancy goes on. We were making one of the most personal, consequential, and painful decisions of our lives and simultaneously stressing over the many thousands of dollars the necessary health care might saddle us with. Over the next couple weeks, after many really difficult conversations with our doctors, genetic counselors and each other, we finally decided to seek an abortion via labor induction to end the pregnancy.  

Read full op-ed at Bridgemi.org

This letter to the editor originally appeared in the Detroit Free Press. 08/06/2023

We write to express our agreement with many of the important points Emme Zanotti made in her recent opinion piece. (“It isn’t about a rainbow flag. LGBTQ Michiganders are fighting for their lives,” Detroit Free Press, June 9.) As ACLU attorneys, we’d also like to add a legal perspective to the growing trend of banning public displays of support for the LGBTQ+ community.

One point made by Ms. Zanotti that needs to be amplified is this: Hamtramck and Dearborn — cities with large Muslim populations and Muslim political leadership — have received a disproportionate amount of media coverage whenever the issue of government restrictions on LGBTQ+ expression arises. But while media outlets were focused on Hamtramck and Dearborn, places like Livingston County, Livonia and Eastpointe were all taking similar actions against the LGBTQ+ community. How much have they been in the news? 

The unfortunate reality is anti-LGBTQ forces are at work in cities and school districts across America — including far too many Michigan cities and school districts. Local officials often claim that if they permit the flying of pride flags on government property or the posting of pro-LGBTQ+ placards on school walls, they would be required to honor other such requests, including those that most people would find offensive. Some of these officials even claim they are constitutionally required to remain neutral.

They are wrong.

Just as the First Amendment protects freedom of speech for individuals, government bodies are also allowed to express their values by choosing which flags they will or will not fly. They are completely free to show they welcome LGBTQ+ people in their communities and their schools by displaying flags, or other displays, without running afoul of the Constitution.

Whether cities and school districts that ban expressions of support for LGBTQ+ people are driven by real or feigned fears of legal liability, their message is loud and clear: LGBTQ+ people and students are not welcome nor supported. 

That is both wrong and dangerous, and it comes at a time when state legislatures across the nation have introduced a record-breaking number of anti-LGBTQ bills this year (nearly 500) that limit access to health care for trans people, censor school curricula and ban books featuring LGBTQ+ people.

 These political attacks, and the inflammatory rhetoric accompanying them, only serve to foster hate. As Ms. Zanotti pointed out, violence has already increased to the point that LGBTQ+ people are nine times more likely to be victims of hate crimes than heterosexual people.

Given that, do we really want our local governments and school districts to remain "neutral" in ensuring LGBTQ+ people are accorded the same fairness and dignity as others?

We must not allow a vocal few to dominate the conversation and drive anti-LGBTQ+ policies in our communities. Together, we must speak out and demand that public officials take actions to support of LGBTQ+ people. Together, we must speak out and demand that public officials take actions to support LGBTQ+ people. The time to do that is now.

Jay Kaplan & Ramis J. Wadood