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LANSING, MICH. (AP) — A decade ago, the Republican-led Michigan Legislature was about to pass one of the nation’s most restrictive anti-abortion laws in that time, a 42-year-old senator from East Lansing took over. on the floor of the Senate to speak out against what he knew would happen.
A few minutes into her speech, Democrat Gretchen Whitmer ditched her prepared remarks and revealed for the first time publicly that she was bullied while in college. If she had been pregnant, Whitmer said, she would not have been able to afford an abortion under the proposed law.
The bill, which Whitmer derided as “rape insurance” because it required women to declare when purchasing health insurance whether they intended to have an abortion, was passed. But Whitmer, now in his second term as Michigan governor after winning re-election by nearly 11 percent in 2022, this week removed the requirement from state law. at the stroke of a pen after the Democratic Legislature sent him a bill to throw it out.
“It’s kind of a great full-circle moment that reinforces the importance of these fights and that they can win, even if sometimes it takes a little longer than it should,” he said. said Whitmer on Monday in an interview with the Associated Press.
Whitmer recalled the hundreds of phone calls and emails he received after his 2013 speech as a turning point for him, when he realized how much people were concerned about protection. the right of a woman to decide whether to have an abortion. It’s a lesson he hopes to convey to his family across the country as one of the nation’s leading abortion rights advocates in what could prove to be an important election year for the issue in 2024.
“Voters speak loud and clear,” he said. “And so I think right now, in this country, it’s an important, very important issue for a lot of people.”
Abortion rights moved forward politically after the US Supreme Court overturned in 2022 Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that has long protected a constitutional right. The court gave states the power to decide for themselves whether abortion should be legalized.
Conservative states across the country quickly legalized abortion in various ways, leading to more legal battles in places like Texas, where a pregnant woman was forced to abort her baby. to go out of state this week to have an abortion. . Some Republicans, including many contenders for the GOP presidential nomination, have also called for a national abortion ban.
The political crisis at the ballot box has largely gone in the opposite direction. The Democrats did better than expected in the midterms last year, limiting their House and keeping the majority of the Senate, and protecting abortion rights worked for the Democrats in many states this year. When fundamental questions about abortion rights appeared on the ballot, even voters in Republican-leaning states from Kansas to Ohio rejected GOP-backed efforts to stop it.
Whitmer said Democrats won Michigan by running unapologetically on the issue. His party controls all levels of government for the first time in 40 years after changing both chambers of the Legislative Assembly last November.
That success was fueled by a citizen-led referendum to enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution after the Supreme Court’s ruling. Whitmer and other Michigan Democrats emphasized their support for the plan in their 2022 election campaigns.
President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign considers protecting abortion rights a winning issue for Democrats in 2024. They are quick to note former President Donald Trump’s boast that, his appointment of three judges of the Supreme Court caused the court to be changed again.
Biden himself is less vocal on the issue than other members of his party, and at times appears to be personally conflicted.
“I am a practicing Catholic. I’m not big on abortion,” he said at a fundraiser in June. “Guess what?” Roe v. was right. Wade.”
Biden’s delay comes as his re-election bid faces challenges. Michigan is an important part of the blue wall of states, including Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Biden returned to the Democratic column, and helped him win the White House in 2020.
The president’s support in the state has stagnated since the 2020 election, however, and a CNN poll released Monday showed that only 35% of respondents approved of the work he is doing.
Michigan is also home to one of the largest Arab-American and Muslim communities in the country, and many of their leaders have been vocal about their support for Israel in the war that has begun. in a Hamas attack on October 7 is possible. jeopardizing his chances of winning again in Michigan.
Whitmer, who is Biden’s re-election chairman and is often touted as a future candidate, dismissed questions Monday about his chances in Michigan, saying he would just “focusing on rights today.”
Whitmer also said he understands that talking about abortion is “not good for everyone.” But he said that the chances of Republicans pushing for a federal ban on abortion should be taken seriously.
For him, there is enough reason to talk quickly about the rights of abortion, normal and transparent.
“The goal of the country’s abortion ban is real,” he said. Using other words to talk about urgent rights or being overly cautious on the issue, he said, “makes time less important.”
In June, Whitmer launched a “Fight Like Hell” federal PAC to raise money for Democratic candidates to “uncompromise their fight for workers and their basic liberties” heading into the 2024 election. The PAC will support candidates for Congress and other offices but will also provide financial support for Biden’s re-election.
Since winning the entire administration of the law, Michigan Democrats have repealed the 1931 abortion ban, prohibited Michigan companies from firing or retaliating against employees for obtaining an abortion and removed regulations on abortion clinics.
For Whitmer, those successes help justify her decision a decade ago to discuss abortion in specific terms.
“I think about my daughters, I was very worried to hear that their mother was raped when they were 10 and 11 years old,” said Whitmer. “And now they’re 20 and 21 years old, and I know they’re proud to see that I’m staying in this fight, and that I’m trying to make life better for other women.”