Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer just confirmed she is pro-abortion, not pro-choice. Whitmer recently signed an executive order promoting abortion but on Wednesday she vetoed $21.4 million in funding for pregnancy centers that help women find abortion alternatives and adoption programs.
The veto includes a program to provide housing for pregnant women in need.
Whitmer signed the state budget into law but used her line item veto power to nix funding for pregnancy centers because she falsely claims they lie to women just because they don’t kill babies in abortions.
Whitmer Communications Director Bobby Leddy cited “connections to fake women’s health centers or implementation concerns” as the reason for the veto.
“While politicians in other states rush to ban abortion, even in instances of rape or incest, Michigan must remain a place where a woman’s ability to make her own medical decisions with her trusted health care provider is respected,” he said in a statement. “As such, Governor Whitmer is expected to veto funding for centers that often purport to offer comprehensive reproductive health care, including abortion, but don’t, preying on women at a vulnerable time in their lives.”
But the veto drew condemnation from state legislators.
State Rep. Thomas Albert, a Republican from Lowell who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement this week that Whitmer’s vetoes “support only one option for women in a crisis pregnancy — the deadly choice of abortion.”
“It is shocking that the governor, and her far left political base, are now so extreme that helping pregnant women who might consider adoption instead is now a bridge too far,” Albert said.
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Yet taking abortion alternatives like parenting and adoption out of the equation makes it harder for women to make their own medical decisions when pregnant.
And abortion centers don’t offer comprehensive medical care, they just sell abortions. In fact, studies and investigative reports have confirmed that virtually all Planned Parenthood abortion businesses don’t offer prenatal care. And at Planned Parenthood, women are sold abortions 41 times more often than they are helped with adoption.
Some of the funding Whitmer plans to veto include prenatal care and support as well as housing assistance for vulnerable women as well as $2 million to fund a tax credit to adoptive parents.
Funding expected to be vetoed within the general state budget includes $10 million to fund marketing programs that promote the adoption of infants and to develop factual educational information materials on adoption as an alternative to abortion, “including the ability of the birth mother to establish a pre-birth plan.”
It also comprises: $4 million for grants and other expenditures for safe housing and comprehensive supportive services without charge for pregnant women who are without a safe home and in need statewide, which must include access to health and prenatal care, parenting and life skill development, and services and education for a stable transition to independent living.
Whitmer’s veto comes amid an unprecedented wave of attacks on pro-life organizations and threats from Democrats to “shut down” pregnancy centers nationwide. SBA Pro-Life America has documented more than 80 incidents of pro-abortion vandalism, violence and intimidation since the Dobbs opinion was leaked.
“Pro-abortion Democrats like Governor Whitmer show their true extremism in ‘cracking down’ on pregnancy centers, which provide a multitude of resources for women and families that the profit-driven abortion industry just doesn’t offer,” said SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “Women in Michigan have real choices, as nearly 200 pregnancy and health centers across the state outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities 13 to one. The average client satisfaction rate of pregnancy centers is over 99%, and voters overwhelmingly support these nonprofits – including rank-and-file Democrats and pro-choice voters.
Earlier this month, Whitmer signed a second pro-abortion executive order to promote the killing of unborn babies in abortions in her state. Her order is similar to those issued by other pro-abortion Democrat governors in Colorado, Pennsylvania, Maine, North Carolina, Nevada, Rhode Island and Washington state since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24.
Whitmer’s order states that she will refuse to cooperate with other states by extraditing abortionists and abortion workers who abort unborn babies in violation of other states’ pro-life laws. The governor said she will protect women who have abortions from prosecution, too. However, pro-life laws do not punish women, and pro-life leaders have made it very clear that they oppose such punishments.
Genevieve Marnon, legislative director of Right to Life of Michigan, said the governor is setting a dangerous precedent by refusing to help with criminal prosecutions.
“The idea that she is telling law enforcement agents not to cooperate with the law enforcement seeking criminals from other states is dangerous,” Marnon told the local news. “It’s a dangerous precedent.”
Six candidates are running in the Republican primary for governor of Michigan. Four candidates—Tudor Dixon, Ryan Kelley, Kevin Rinke, and Garrett Soldano—lead in fundraising and polling.
Whitmer is aggressively pro-abortion. In May, she signed another executive order demanding that state agencies find new ways to promote abortions in anticipation that the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn Roe.
She also filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s pre-Roe abortion ban, which was supposed to go back into effect in June. However, a state judge with ties to Planned Parenthood blocked it. If enforced, the law could save nearly 30,000 unborn babies from abortion every year.
Since Roe in 1973, more than 63 million unborn babies and hundreds of mothers have died in supposedly “safe,” legal abortions in the U.S. The infamous ruling forced states to legalize abortions for any reason up to viability and allowed abortions for any reason up to birth.
In the historic Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health ruling June 24, the Supreme Court justices overturned Roe and allowed states to protect unborn babies from abortion again. Thirteen already have done so, although some have been blocked by court orders, and more state are expected to enact pro-life laws in the coming weeks.
Ultimately, as many as 26 states may ban abortions and protect babies from certain death for the first time in nearly 50 years.
