Angi Becker Stevens is a fiction writer whose work has appeared in many print and online literary magazines, in addition to being anthologized in Best of the Web 2010 and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. As a member of The Organization For a Free Society, she organizes around all varieties of social justice, and is particularly involved in feminist and polyamorous activism.
Far from being an exception to the rule, nearly all of the women affected by a ban on abortions after 20 weeks will be those making the excruciating choice to terminate a wanted pregnancy due to fetal anomalies incompatible with life.
In spite of insufficient time for committee members to review the 50-pages of legislation, and a lack of expert testimony, the House committee passed HB 5711 by a vote of 13 to 5.
Rendon’s HB 5711 is the first bill in the state to roll so many abortion restrictions into one package, threatening to create serious barriers to abortion access for both abortion-seeking women and abortion providers in one fell swoop.
Over a dozen pieces of proposed extreme anti-choice legislation are currently at various stages of being passed into Michigan law. From personhood to ultrasounds, fetal pain bills to provider regulations, the proposed legislation in Michigan seems to represent every variety of anti-choice tactic we’ve witnessed in state legislations across the country in recent months.
While there has been much fury recently over Virginia’s recently proposed transvaginal ultrasound bill, other states’ anti-choice lawmakers have chosen the equally unacceptable route of psychological—rather than physical—violation of women.
We must stand with Planned Parenthood. But let’s not do so in a way that denies the extreme importance of all the services they provide. As advocates for reproductive justice, the last thing we can afford to do is allow ourselves to become complicit in the stigmatization of abortion.
Following in the footsteps of 45 other states, Michigan was poised to adopt legislation that would require schools to develop an anti-bullying policy. At the last minute, however, language was added to the bill that places LGBTQ students in more danger instead of less: a specific allowance for bullying that is done in the name of religious belief.
Up until the latter half of the twentieth century, arguments against abortion focused primarily on enforcing traditional gender roles for women, not on “saving babies.” We need to reclaim the debate by focusing on women.
As far as HB 4799 is concerned, threatening to divorce your wife unless she gets an abortion has a $10,000 price tag. Threatening to divorce her if she gets an abortion, however, is perfectly acceptable. In fact, the state itself is perfectly willing to participate in coercion against abortion.
Last week, the Michigan House appropriations committee voted to approve a budget that includes a staggering $201.4 million cut to community health funding. The budget will eliminate all state funding currently available for family planning.
