Harris visits Grand Rapids to outline threats to abortion access

Vice President Kamala Harris thanked Michigan Gov. Grechen Whitmer and other Michigan leaders during a visit Thursday for all they’ve done to maintain the right to abortion in Michigan, but cautioned that nobody should get too comfortable in the fight for reproductive health care access.

“The people of Michigan can not sit back and take comfort without also understanding that elections matter and that there is a full on conservative effort to pass a national ban, which would mean the people of Michigan would not be as safe,” Harris said during her visit to the Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids.

The vice president’s visit is part of a nationwide tour on reproductive rights that she embarked on last month. There was a small pro-Palestinian protest outside the event, with one person carrying a “No War on Iran” sign. President Joe Biden visited Macomb County earlier in February to celebrate the UAW’s endorsement of his reelection campaign where there was a larger protest of those calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

As former President Donald Trump gears up his efforts in the 2024 presidential election, The New York Times recently reported that Trump is privately supporting a 16-week national abortion ban, which he’s refrained from confirming in the past. Trump campaigned in Oakland County on Saturday ahead of Michigan’s Tuesday presidential primary.

 

But this isn’t groundbreaking news, Harris said. And looking at all the lives lost since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade in June 2022, the answer to “who’s to blame” is clear.

“When you look at the fact that the previous president of the United States was clear in his intention to hand-pick three Supreme Court justices who will overturn the protections of Roe v. Wade. … That’s what got us to this point today,” Harris said at the event where she was joined by U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing) and U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Grand Rapids). 

Trump is proud that because of his actions women and their doctors have been criminalized for abortions and miscarriages and that women are being forced into life or death situations not having access to medical care, she said.

Freedom is fundamental to the promise of America, Harris said. To see the highest court in the country strip constitutional rights away from Americans chips away at that promise.

“This is an issue that is about fundamental freedoms and liberty and it is an issue about harm, real harm that is happening to people every day,” Harris said.

Whitmer welcomed Harris’ visit and thanked her for championing women’s rights, adding that Michigan is proud to have passed the constitutional right to an abortion and other forms of reproductive health care in 2022.

After Roe fell, abortion remained legal in Michigan, despite a nearly 100-year-old state law on the books criminalizing abortions. Both Whitmer and Planned Parenthood of Michigan had filed lawsuits before Roe’s repeal challenging what Whitmer has called a “zombie law.”

And she excitedly “slayed the zombie” by signing the repeal of the 1931 abortion ban from the Legislature last spring.

On Roe v. Wade anniversary, doctors outline the harms of a national abortion ban

Michigan’s Democratic-led Legislature has taken on other parts of the state’s current laws that leaders say prevent the “reproductive freedom for all” the majority of voters supported in the 2022 election. Among the changes made in the Reproductive Health Act, several Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers, commonly known as TRAP laws, were demolished which abortion providers hope will help increase access, especially for rural communities.

But despite all of Michigan’s efforts, Whitmer has expressed concern for Trump’s vision for the future of abortion access, as well as other efforts impacting care.

The U.S. Supreme Court will begin hearing oral arguments on March 26 on the future of access to mifepristone, the pill used in the majority of abortions in the U.S. 

Harris noted the ruling this week from the Alabama Supreme Court declaring that frozen embryos are children this week, which has already caused doctors to halt in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments. 

“On the one hand, the proponents are saying that an individual doesn’t have a right to end an unwanted pregnancy and on the other hand, the individual does not have the right to start a family,” Harris said.