Hundreds of pro-choice advocates protested Michigan’s proposed package of anti-abortion legislation in the state’s Capitol yesterday. Women and men, many of whom wore pink Planned Parenthood t-shirts, chanted on the lawn and occupied the balconies of the House as legislators discussed the bills. According to the Associated Press, Planned Parenthood’s presence stemmed from their exclusion from last week’s panel hearing on these bills.
The activists chanted and applauded pro-choice legislators, calling out, “This is our house,” and “We’ll remember in November.” Planned Parenthood estimates that approximately 500 people joined the protest.
As previously reported, a package of anti-abortions bills in Michigan was approved by a State House Panel last Friday and the bills were being prepared to be taken up by the House during yesterday’s protest. Under the proposed laws, abortion would be banned after 20 weeks; doctors would be required to screen women seeking abortions to make sure they are not being coerced; doctors would be prohibited from using webcams to provide consultation as women undergo medication abortions; and there would be new restrictions on disposing of fetal remains. One of the bills also requires clinics that perform abortions to be licensed as surgical centers.
Associated Press, 06/12/12; Think Progress, 06/12/12; Feminist Majority Foundation, 06/08/12
1 comment
Liliane Stern says:
Jun 13, 2012
I think that legislators who introduce any Bills that intrude into a woman’s life and treats her as a criminal suspect if she decides for herself that she needs an abortion, are not serving the people,and women are people. Those anti-women legislators should be prosecuted for dicriminating against women and imposing their religious agenda on them and their families rather than serving them by passing legislation that benefits and treats them as autonomous US citizens with Constitutional rights. Their personhood comes first and they should not be required to endanger or worse, sacrifice their lives on the pro-lifers alter. Those hypocritical Bishops are against Euthenasia, but they find nothing wrong with women risking their health and dying from a lethal pregnancy as St. Gianna did who supporting the ban on abortion and knowing that carrying to term would kill her, still did it, in effect committing suicide. The Bishops, happy that she supported their abortion ban dogma, canonised her for doing so. Health is separate from religion and should be treated as such. Women own their own bodies, their most basic property over which they have rights. Women’s bodies and what is in them are not the property of the Bishops nor the Government.