While the state of Michigan is governed by a Democrat, it still has a healthy contingent of Republicans trying to roll back abortion rights.
This week, the state House put forth House Bill 4320, which seeks to ban the procedure of dilation and evacuation, which ends a pregnancy in the second trimester. Doctors who testified at hearings before the bills were voted on said that banning the procedure will make abortions more painful and dangerous. But according to Senator Kim LaSata, that’s the whole point.
“Of course it should be hard!” LaSata told her colleagues according to the Detroit Free Press. “And the procedure should be painful! And you should allow God to take over!! And you should deliver that baby!”
During her remarks, LaSata recounted how she unsuccessfully tried to abort a fetus that doctors told her would not survive the birth process. According to her, she delivered a stillborn baby after the dilation and evacuation process failed, which was “God’s way of looking out for me.”
“You should allow God to take over and deliver that baby, and it shouldn’t be made easier for you,” she said.
Speaking to the Detroit Free Press, president of Planned Parenthood Michigan, Lori Carpentier, said that mothers who seek out the D&E procedure have almost always received catastrophic diagnoses and are forced to end pregnancies they desperately wanted.
“These are people who have had baby showers and folded new baby clothes in anticipation of birth, only to be have been handed the tragic news that their fetuses are not viable,” Carpentier said.
Another bill on the table is House Bill 4321, which would threaten doctors who perform the D&E procedure with up to two years in prison and a $50,000 fine.
With a Democratic governor in place and the lack of votes to override a veto, why would Republicans move forward with abortion bills that are destined to fail? According the Detroit Free Press’s Brian Dickerson, it’s all to please the state’s anti-abortion activists.
Tuesday’s vote honors the party’s obligation to Right to Life of Michigan, the indefatigable anti-abortion army without whose support the Republicans’ legislative majority might not have survived last November’s blue wave.
Although the bills passed straight down party lines, Governor Gretchen Whitmer is expected to veto them as soon as they reach her desk.
H/T Friendly Atheist
Featured image: screen grab/YouTube
