Detroit News Blasts Michigan Legislature

The Detroit News Editorial Page blasts state lawmakers in its
own backyard for their latest anti-choice behavior, including wasting time proposing bills that would restrict women’s access to abortion services.

The House rushed through a string of some of the most extreme restrictions, including a 20-week ban and requirements for abortion providers to stay in
operation that serve no real purpose, but to try and shut them down.

There is no crisis calling for the collection of anti-abortion bills House lawmakers rushed through on the verge of summer recess last week. Their Senate
colleagues would be wise to let the matter float away during the break. If abortion and genitalia talk consume Lansing again this fall, the GOP’s ruling
majority can count on Democrats portraying them as a collection of narrow-minded ideologues. The repercussions could extend to the ballot box in November.

It’s too bad Michigan’s Legislature has joined others that, entrusted with Republican control in 2010 by voters thirsty for government reforms, have gotten
all wound up trying to relitigate abortion.

Thirty-nine years ago in Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court declared abortion to be constitutional and legal.

Tinkering with the ruling can have explosive results that overshadow even the most praiseworthy efforts to shrink government and control taxes, lawmakers
learned last week.

This is the same House that recently shushed two female lawmakers for speaking out against the restrictions during the debate. Rep. Lisa Brown dared to
utter the words “vagina.” Specifically, she said, “Mr. Speaker, I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but ‘no’ means ‘no.'” Her
colleague Rep. Barb Byrum mentioned “vasectomies” during the debate.

Both were promptly banned to speak as a result. But they got their retribution. On June 18, hundreds rallied on Michigan’s Capitol steps while they, Eve
Ensler, and nine other lawmakers read “The Vagina Monologues” in protest.