Aborting Michigan's Prop 3

If the devil is in the details, then he’s reveling in a proposed amendment to Michigan’s constitution.

Dubbed the “Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative,” Proposal 3’s ballot language reads: “A ‘yes’ vote would support providing a state constitutional right to reproductive freedom, which is defined as ‘the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, sterilization, abortion care, miscarriage management, and infertility care.’”

The paragraph seems benign enough; but this is where we must understand that those behind the ballot initiative (I’m looking at you, ACLU and Planned Parenthood) have chosen their verbiage well.
The writers have mimicked what countless 4th graders have done over the years, burying the bad report card in a stack of innocuous parent newsletters and art class projects, hoping Mom and Dad won’t notice.

Who, in their right mind, wants to restrict a woman’s right to choose prenatal care, where she gives birth, what kind of postpartum care to receive, or how to navigate the devastation of a miscarriage or infertility matters?

And that is the thought process the crafters of this proposal are depending upon. Freedom. Miscarriage management. Infertility care. These are the words they have selected to make it easy for us to skip over “abortion care” and go right to a “Yes” on November 8.

A read through the actual text of the proposed constitutional amendment, however, gives a fuller, more alarming picture of just how radical this measure really is. Permit me to draw your attention to just a few of the gems found in this horrific amendment, the full text of which can be found online.
The troubles begin in the very first line: “Every individual has a fundamental right to reproductive freedom…” 

Readers will, no doubt, notice the term individual as opposed to woman. We must not simply chalk this up to sterile legalese. Words matter, especially on a ballot proposal. You can bet that each word in Prop 3 was carefully selected; and the term selected was decidedly not woman nor adult nor even person of a legal age, but individual.

In fact, throughout the proposed amendment, the age of the “pregnant individual” is mentioned not once. The 13-year-old, then, who has no legal right to set their own curfew, drive, vote, or consume alcohol has the right to enter the abortion clinic. Indeed, as one critic has noted, “the Michigan ACLU admitted in a media interview that this reproductive right applies to children starting ‘at birth’.”

Equally alarming is that there are no restrictions on who can perform the abortion procedure. Notice the vague language employed in subsection 3: “nor shall the state penalize, prosecute, or otherwise take adverse action against someone for aiding or assisting a pregnant individual in exercising their right to reproductive freedom with their voluntary consent” (emphasis added).

Not a doctor. Not a nurse. Someone. If this amendment passes, any “someone” has the right to perform an abortion on a woman as long as she consents voluntarily. And those “someones,” boyfriends and sex traffickers alike, will rejoice at their newly discovered freedom.

Then, there is the tragic statement on fetal viability. The proposal dictates that the only time the state can interfere in abortion access is after the point of fetal viability. 

Common sense (and Merriam-Webster) tells us that fetal viability is the point when a baby can survive outside of the womb, typically understood to be somewhere between 22 and 24 weeks gestation. For the crafters of Prop 3, though, this is far too restrictive.

They change the definition to mean “the point in pregnancy when, in the professional judgment of an attending health care professional and based on the particular facts of the case, there is a significant likelihood of the fetus's sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures” (emphasis added).

Think about those words. How many people are there, even in our own communities, who depend upon “extraordinary medical measures” to survive daily? If it is immoral to deny an adult an oxygen tank, dialysis, or intubation, how heinous is it to qualify a baby’s right to life upon whether they need similar care in the NICU?

The way I see it, Prop 3 is a trojan horse. It’s not about choice. It’s not about freedom. It’s not about getting “your rosaries off my ovaries,” as its proponents suggest. It’s about the human rights catastrophe of our generation, rooted in the belief that one person’s autonomy trumps the rights of the most vulnerable.
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There’s a lot of money and outside influence being pumped into the campaign to #RestoreRoe. As for me, I will do all I can to abort Prop 3.