Seeing her constitutional right to an abortion wiped out by the U.S. Supreme Court this summer, Amanda Carravallah responded by leaning into a right she still retained: free speech.

In both respects, she has an ally in the ACLU of Michigan.

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, Ms. Carravallah felt compelled to speak out in support of abortion rights. She attended a rally in Detroit to protest the decision, but felt that wasn’t enough. Wanting to send an emphatic message, she erected several pro-abortion lawn signs in her front yard. The language used was blunt, and some signs included profanity—accurately reflecting the depth of Ms. Carravallah’s indignation at having her right to bodily autonomy stripped away from her by judicial decree.

With hand-made protest signs like “Abort the Court” planted among the colorful flowers sprouting in her front yard, she danced joyfully in front of her house to a variety of musical selections, all while wearing a bikini and other revealing clothing as an expression of control over her own body. One of the songs playing on a loop was Carry Anne, with the lyric, “This is my pussy, I can do what I want.”

When she posted videos of all this on TikTok, they caught fire. Some of her neighbors, however, were less than amused. Police were called three times over a 24-hour period. But Ms. Carravallah knows the law, and didn’t play the music loud enough to warrant a noise-ordinance infraction. And the lawn signs and lyrics, of course, were protected speech under the First Amendment. The police, reluctantly but correctly, did not stop Ms. Carravallah’s protest.

Undeterred, one of the neighbors sought and obtained a personal protection order (PPO) that, among other things, prohibited Ms. Carravallah from being anywhere the neighbor could see her. It was essentially an attempt to have Ms. Carravallah placed under something akin to house arrest.

That is when the ACLU of Michigan became involved. Along with cooperating counsel Allison Kriger and Mark Kriger, private practice criminal defense attorneys based in Detroit, we represented Ms. Carravallah in court, arguing that the PPO had no legal justification, and her activity was fully protected by the First Amendment.

An Oakland County Circuit Court judge agreed with us, and the PPO was terminated.

The First Amendment’s protection of free speech was upheld. Still hanging in the balance, though, is the issue that drove Ms. Carravallah to protest in the first place: the fundamental right to an abortion.

Protecting Abortion Rights

Michiganders will have a chance to re-affirm that right when they vote in the upcoming election. Led by the ACLU of Michigan and our coalition partners, Reproductive Freedom for All collected a record number of signatures over the summer to place Proposal 3 on the Nov. 8 ballot.

If Proposal 3 passes, it will keep in place the protections established in the Roe v. Wade decision nearly 50 years ago. It is a common-sense measure that reflects what polls show to be the desire of most Michiganders: keeping abortion in our state safe and legal.

Unfortunately, special and religious interests with deep pockets are trying to defeat Prop 3 by spreading disinformation and sowing confusion about what it will actually do.

You’ve probably seen some of their attack ads.

Although the Yes on Proposal 3 campaign might not be able to match the other side’s profuse spending, it does have something they don’t: the momentum and passion of a grassroots network of supporters committed to reclaiming the rights that were cruelly denied to them by the politicized Supreme Court.

You can do your part to help pass Prop 3 by contacting three people you know and getting them to commit to voting for it. Then go and vote for it yourself. If you’d like to do even more, we need your help, from knocking on doors to making phone calls to potential voters. Sign up to volunteer now by going to the RFFA website.

With absentee voting already underway, we must act with urgency. And we can draw inspiration from Ms. Carravallah, who told the Daily Kos this when interviewed for a story about her protest:

“No more business as usual. If women and girls in this country are losing their basic right to medical freedom and 10-year-old girls are being shuffled out of Ohio to get abortions after they were raped, as a sexual assault survivor, that’s a hard no for me.”

And a resounding “yes” to Prop 3, which will protect reproductive rights in Michigan for generations to come, and provide a history-making model other states can follow as they navigate the new legal landscape created by the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Phil Mayor, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Michigan, worked on Amanda Carravallah’s case.

Democracy must be protected. Acting on that long-held truth now is more urgent than ever.

Less than two years ago, we saw a defeated but still defiant president who was willing to unleash violence in a desperate attempt to retain power, and a riled up MAGA mob raring to be unleashed. With gallows waiting outside, they stormed the Capitol in an attempt to keep a legitimate election from being certified, coming within 40  feet of grabbing Vice President Mike Pence.

The insurrection failed, but MAGA lives on. The Michigan ballot is filled with candidates who continue to trumpet the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Equally concerning are the intense efforts the MAGA-verse has put into recruiting poll watchers and workers.

This is no time for people who support civil liberties to be complacent.

Fortunately, we live in a state where its citizens are empowered to directly make crucial decisions affecting us. You and me and every other person who is eligible to vote can directly shape our future through ballot measures. That is a good thing, because Lansing gridlock and partisan gerrymandering have resulted in a state government that often does not reflect what a majority of people here want.

That is why a record number of people signed petitions to put Proposal 3 on the Nov. 8 ballot. We know from polling that a solid majority of Michiganders want abortion to remain legal. But that right was put in jeopardy when a U.S. Supreme Court, dominated by conservatives, overturned Roe v. Wade, taking away the constitutional protection for abortion that had been in place for nearly 50 years.

Politicians have no business inserting themselves into highly personal reproductive decisions that should remain between a person and their caregiver. Motivated by the fact that a dormant 1931 law that outlaws abortion could be reactivated, grassroots volunteers helped collect more than 750,000 signatures to put the issue in front of voters.

Support for the measure remains high. But deep-pocketed special interests are doing all they can to spread disinformation and cloud the issue. We can help counter that effort by tapping into the same grassroots enthusiasm for reproductive freedom that put Prop 3 on the ballot. What we need in the waning days of this campaign is for people like you to volunteer to knock on doors and make phone calls to make sure potential voters know the truth about Prop 3 and turn out to pass it.

You can volunteer by going to the Reproductive Freedom for All website and signing up.

Also on the ballot is something that’s absolutely crucial to a functioning and fair democracy: voting rights. This is another issue where the citizenry is more forward-looking  than the political power structure. In 2018, 67 percent of the Michiganders voted “yes” on a ballot measure that expanded absentee voting and enacted other reform that made voting in our state both more accessible and more secure.

The ACLU of Michigan played a major role in helping pass that proposal because of our long-standing commitment to voting rights. Promote the Vote, which appears on this year’s ballot as Proposal 2, expands on the success achieved in 2018. If passed, Prop 2 will: create nine days of in-person early voting; allow voters to request an absentee ballot for all future elections; provide state funding for secure ballot drop boxes, postage for absentee ballots and absentee ballot tracking; count ballots from military and overseas voters that are postmarked by Election Day and received within six days.

These are common-sense measures that will help to further ensure that every eligible voter who wants their voice to be heard is able to do so. Prop 2 will  also block the ability of partisan election deniers to interfere in the outcome of an election by requiring audits to be conducted in public by local election officials. It will also ensure that the outcome of all Michigan elections is determined solely by the votes cast.

No one person can protect our democracy. It is up to all of us to do our part. With Election Day fast approaching, the time to act is now. Please join us in the ongoing fight to keep special interests and highly partisan politicians from determining the future of voting and reproductive rights in Michigan.

It all comes down to three words found in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution:

We the people.

The future of our democracy is up to us. The time to protect that future is now.

Shelli Weisberg is the ACLU of Michigan’s political director.