(WWJ) – Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says “we cannot succumb to complacency” as she continues to fight what her office calls the “nationwide assault on abortion,” with the Supreme Court apparently planning to overturn Roe V. Wade.
In response to the draft Supreme Court opinion that was leaked by Politico last week, Whitmer on Monday wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, explaining why she isn’t waiting for Congress as she tries to keep Michiganders’ abortion rights in-tact, should Roe V. Wade be overturned.
Last month the governor filed a lawsuit, “drawing on authority granted to (Whitmer) as governor,” asking the Michigan Supreme Court to immediately resolve whether the state constitution includes the right to access abortion.
In her op-ed, Whitmer says her argument is predicated on the due process and equal protection clauses in the Michigan Constitution.
The due process clause protects the right to abortion the same way the U.S. Constitution does under Roe, while the equal protection clause prohibits the state from adopting laws “based on paternalistic justifications and overbroad generalizations about the role of women in the work force and at home,” according to Whitmer’s piece.
She’s asking the state’s high court to interpret the constitution to protect the right to abortion, as states like Kansas, Alaska, Montana and Florida have already done.
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While people in states where abortion rights would remain post-Roe may feel protected, the governor says, there’s “a very real danger that in a few short years, with complete control of the federal levers of power, anti-choice, anti-women extremists could enact a federal abortion ban, which could abolish abortion nationally, regardless of state law.”
She says that's "their endgame."
Whitmer is urging other pro-choice governors, state representatives, private businesses and citizens to take action to protect access to abortions in their states.
“If we do not use every lever of power we have right now, or if we succumb to complacency, Americans will suffer and may die,” Whitmer wrote. “Many will be out of sight, forgotten. Most will be poor. A sizable contingent will be women of color. We can all sense the hopelessness and despair that tens of millions of American women — our neighbors, family members and friends — are feeling. But despair is a choice, and pessimism is a luxury. We must take unprecedented steps to protect the right to choose.”
Last month Whitmer said she’s going to “fight like hell” because it’s a “fight worth having.”
She’s one of many public officials taking on that fight. Last week Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said she would not prosecute any abortion cases should Roe be overturned, saying she feels like she is “living in the twilight zone.”
“I have three daughters. Now more than ever I must stand to protect them and their reproductive rights,” Worthy said in a statement. “This is not just for my daughters, but for every single person in America so that they can decide what to do with their bodies. Only those who are invited into their decision making process should have any say.”
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