Welcome to the post-complacency world! The bad news is that it’s totally fucked up. The good news is that we can change that. We have to. We don’t have the luxury of not giving a shit.
There’s no place better to totally give a shit than Detroit, Michigan. It’s the first stop in the Vagical Mystery Tour’s post-Kavanaugh nomination-this-will-NOT-happen incarnation. And the State of Reproductive Rights in the State of Michigan has a lot to tell us about why we NEED to stop this Supreme Court appointment.
For starters, Michigan has the whole ugly slate of laws and rules designed to harass and torment clinics and patients alike. There’s a 24 hour waiting period that forces patients to make two trips to the provider. They have TRAP laws with unnecessary standards for facilities, and requirements for transfer agreements with hospitals. Telemedicine is prohibited ONLY for abortion services.
And the state of Michigan each year diverts some $400,000 in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families money toward FAKE “crisis pregnancy centers”—the LAST thing needy families need! Ugliest of all, Michigan requires you to buy a special “rape insurance” rider if you want necessary abortion services covered by insurance. Have fun talking to your broker about that!
Oh, and the Michigan anti-choice nuts are joining with anti-vaxxer bigger nuts! Republicans in the legislature are pushing a bill to try and use “informed consent” to scare people away from vaccinating their kids with vaccines made from what they call “aborted fetal tissue.” Some vaccines may contain what vaccine experts say is “perhaps billionths of a gram” of DNA fragments descended from cultures culled from legally aborted fetuses over 50 years ago! As much occurs in the fruits and veggies we eat! Really.
Already, 86% of counties in Michigan, accounting for 40% of the population, have no provider. And Michigan is one of the few states where abortion numbers are going up. That’s partly because neighboring Ohio is even crazier in its attacks on abortion rights. From 2010 to 2015, the number of abortions performed on out-of-staters in Michigan more than doubled. That’s just a taste of the panicked abortion travelers you’d see if a Kavanaugh court ever overturned Roe v. Wade.
And what you’d see in Michigan if Roe v. Wade gets tossed is a virtually TOTAL AND COMPLETE BAN ON ABORTION. IMMEDIATELY! That’s because Michigan’s anti-abortion law is still on the books, despite being made unconstitutional by Roe v. Wade. If Roe v. Wade goes, that law, dating back to 1931, rises from the dead like a zombie that feasts on human rights.
THAT is what is at stake in this confirmation fight! THANKS for making that clear, MICHIGAN! We’re here for you, we’re here for us, and we’re here for good!
Kavanaugh? How about Kava-not-so-fast, motherfucker!
