LANSING, MI (MPRN)-- Democrats in the state Legislature say they know they don’t have the votes to reverse Michigan’s abortion insurance law. But, they hope a public campaign will convince the Legislature to re-visit the question, or help elect more lawmakers who will.
The law was initiated by a petition drive, so it would take three-quarters of the House and the Senate to change or repeal it. But lawmakers like state Representative Sarah Roberts (D-St. Clair Shores) say they think they have a case to make – that the law would deny insurance coverage to women who suffer a rape or some types of miscarriages unless they’ve purchased a separate policy in advance.
“Our law should protect all of our citizens,” she said at a press conference. “Instead, this law punishes our women when they are at their most vulnerable.”
Roberts and other Democrats say the question should have gone to the ballot instead of being approved by the Legislature without hearings.
Doctor Timothy Johnson is a University of Michigan medical professor. He says there’s too much murky language in the law, and that’s causing physicians to second-guess patient care, especially when it comes to miscarriages that can linger for weeks unless a doctor terminates a pregnancy.
“So I think this law has a lot of perverse outcomes, perverse consequences that are causing patients to suffer, causing women to suffer, causing families to suffer, causing marriages to suffer, and I don’t think that’s what the people of the state of Michigan wanted,” said Johnson.
That’s simply not true, according to one of the groups that led the drive.
“That’s just a complete falsehood,” said Ed Rivet of Right to Life of Michigan. RTL and the Catholic Church collected most of the petition signatures last year that put the question to the Legislature. That was after almost identical language was vetoed by Governor Rick Snyder as part of another bill.
Rivet says there is a specific exception in the law for miscarriages, under Section 11, that says terminating a pregnancy can be covered under a basic health insurance plan if it involves “…treatment upon a pregnant woman who is experiencing a miscarriage or has been diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy.”
Right to Life and the Catholic Church oppose abortions in cases where a pregnancy was caused by rape or incest.