LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – In a recent letter emailed from Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan (PPAM), they asked their supporters to reach out to their state legislators for support and to ask them to “finish” the job they started. They are referring to Proposal 3 – the state’s “Reproductive Freedom for All” initiative that codified abortion access into Michigan’s Constitution. While PPAM is happy about Proposal 3 passing, they say that their work is “far from over.”

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Paula Thornton Greear, Interim Executive Director for PPAM, says in the email, “Since last summer, we have seen a growing surge of patients turning to Planned Parenthood of Michigan for care – and, sadly, despite all of our progress, there are still dozens of harmful restrictions on the books here in Michigan that make it difficult to provide the compassionate and accessible care our patients deserve.”

The letter decries the obstacles in the way of women obtaining fast and unencumbered abortions and goes on to say, “Decades of anti-abortion policies have left us with dangerous barriers still in place, like a mandated 24-hour delay, biased counseling requirements, bans on insurance coverage, laws requiring young people to go before a judge to get approval for abortion care, and even laws that dictate how wide an abortion provider’s doorways need to be. All of these laws are designed for one purpose: to make abortion as hard to access as possible.”

In order to get rid of what they call anti-abortion policies, they are asking their supporters to contact state legislators to move forward on repealing “dangerous restrictions” and ensuring that, once and for all, Michiganders have a legal right to reproductive health care in Michigan and meaningful access to it when they need it.

In an op-ed in the Detroit Free Press in June, Thornton-Greear, along with Sommer Foster, executive director of Michigan Voices, a social justice organization and Loren Khogali, executive director of the ACLU of Michigan wrote that Michigan abortion rights are still in jeopardy and used the same language as Planned Parenthood saying that the legislators need to “finish the job the voters started.”

In their letter, they say that abortion access is still not a reality for many and the abortion laws on the books exacerbate current disparities within the healthcare system experienced by “Black and brown people, rural residents, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, people with low incomes and young people.”

Michigan Democratic legislators appear to be on board with removing what many pro-choice Democrats call restrictive and unconstitutional laws that create barriers to abortion access. Rep. Laurie Pohutsky (D-Livonia) has discussed the laws on things like mandated waiting periods and said, “There are things that were put into place solely to limit (abortion) access. We’re looking to make sure that the promise of a constitutional right to reproductive freedom is actually available to everybody.”

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She added that she knows there are people with limited access to abortion care and added, “So, if you have to drive a couple hundred miles to get to an abortion provider, and then you have to turn around and do it again the next day or pay for lodging to stay there – that’s an encumbrance.”

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has long promised to “fight like Hell” for abortion access and is signaling her support for more legislative changes concerning abortion. In a statement she has said, “It is my hope that the legislature will repeal laws that make it harder for women to exercise their right to access abortion care, including laws that mandate biased, medically inaccurate counseling, discriminatory waiting periods, and put obstructive, targeted regulations on women’s health providers. I will keep using every tool in my toolbox to support, protect, and affirm reproductive freedom in Michigan, and I’ll keep fighting to make our state a welcoming beacon of opportunity where anyone can envision a future.”