Editorial: Michigan voters can show the country how to protect abortion rights
Here in Ann Arbor, where the state’s capital is located, we’ve had several abortion-rights proponents as candidates for office recently. All have been women with strong and courageous views on abortion. However, each one has been defeated by voters, especially Ann Arbor voters.
If you’re reading this, you may be wondering what the heck is happening in Michigan? In most states, you can tell that a candidate supports abortion rights before you vote on them. In Michigan, not so much.
In our state’s primary, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton endorsed abortion rights, while Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump had a mixed list of positions on the issue. But in June’s general election, Clinton was defeated by Trump, and abortion rights supporters in Michigan were left wondering who they could turn to.
It was in August that the pro-abortion rights group I had been with for over a decade, Women Speak Out, decided to start an organizing committee. We were still in the process of forming our group when we learned from the Michigan Secretary of State that abortions conducted during the first trimester of pregnancy were indeed legal. That, combined with reports of the state’s abortion clinics closing left us with many questions about what to do.
The group met for the first time on September 10, 2016, with an initial goal of lobbying on both sides of the issue and getting our message out to Michigan voters.
We held a meeting on October 26, and that afternoon I was on Fox News Channel to deliver my first national political speech with a pro-abortion rights message. We were a group of women from different walks of life, and we had one thing in common: We knew where our priorities lay.
I’ve written about many of the issues on this blog, but abortion has always been one of my strongest beliefs and I wanted to share that with others. I felt I had to share