GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — Michigan will push the boundaries of abortion politics this November after the issue upended campaigns last election cycle.
Democrats nationally and in the state underscore the importance of abortion access and other forms of reproductive freedoms after the Alabama Supreme Court this month created uncertainty regarding fertility treatments and before the U.S. Supreme Court considers the mifepristone abortion pill case. But Michigan Republicans are downplaying the importance of abortion politics this year after Democrats won the governor’s mansion and the statehouse in 2022, in part because of a ballot initiative that proposed a state constitutional amendment protecting access.
In an interview after the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), the dean of Michigan’s congressional delegation in Washington, D.C., was adamant abortion is “not an issue anymore” since the 2022 elections.
“Abortion is only an issue that Democrats want to keep talking about because that’s the only thing they have to talk about,” Walberg told the Washington Examiner during a phone call. “As far as legislatively, that’s done, it’s in the Constitution. So now my responsibility is, as a pro-life individual, … to try to win hearts and minds again on the sanctity of life. It won’t be a campaign issue anymore like it used to be before Roe v. Wade.”
Walberg, whose 5th Congressional District in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula voted against the ballot petition, contended Republicans had an opportunity to “talk about why we ought to preserve life and why life is precious.” But at the same time, the congressman distanced himself from the Alabama decision and the U.S. Supreme Court’s coming one related to mifepristone before it hears oral argument next month.
“It’s not my hands. It’s not in any legislators’ hands in Michigan,” he said.
Hours before the Alabama decision made national headlines, former state GOP Sen. Tom Barrett, who is running for Michigan’s 7th District again, made a similar argument, apportioning responsibility for his 2022 loss to Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) in the same district to abortion politics.
“The abortion proposal, which dominated the race and every race in America seemingly two years ago, is not on the ballot in Michigan this year,” Barrett said during an hourlong sit down at his campaign headquarters in Lansing. “It passed in my district by 16 [percentage] points. So it was a mess. It was a major landslide.”
“The Democrats are trying to make it their issue because they know they’re absolutely getting annihilated on the border,” he added. “They still can’t talk about cost of living. Crime is still stubbornly high in communities. And national security is a very substantial and looming threat. So what do they do? They’re going to talk about abortion, and they’re going to try and force it into the political issue.”
Democrats, such as state Rep. Karen Whitsett, are cognizant that their constituents have other concerns, from President Joe Biden‘s response to the Israel–Hamas war to immigration policies, particularly with respect to the southern border, and the economy. Whitsett, who represents Detroit and the Arab American enclave of Dearborn, was the House Democrat whose opposition to Michigan’s Reproductive Health Act put pressure on the party to remove provisions that would have permitted Medicare-sponsored abortions and repealed a 24-hour mandatory waiting period.
“Right now, I’m concentrating on the ceasefire,” she said of the conflict in the Gaza Strip. “I’m not understanding where, where are these people supposed to go? They keep moving them. Moving them where? Moving them out? I can’t imagine what it’s like to have bombs dropping around you, to try to gather whatever you can, and just start walking. Walking to where? Walking to what?”
But the other Democrat who represents the Dearborn area, state Democratic Rep. Erin Byrnes, dismissed Republican criticism, asserting her party has “every right to talk about abortion” because the GOP is “actively trying to strip away access to a basic medical service.”
“If Republicans are really honestly out there saying that Democrats are using abortion as a political hot potato, they need to look in the mirror. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. I mean, good God, it would be funny if it weren’t such a serious issue,” Byrnes said. “They’ve used that to lure in single-issue voters for years, so they have no right to be talking about that in that space.”
“I’m a person who has a uterus, so this directly impacts me, but even if that’s not the case for someone, what should be frightening and what should motivate people to pay attention and to vote accordingly is the fact that the people who would deny my right to make decisions about my own body are the same people who seek undue power and control over other groups of people,” she continued. “The tentacles of the Supreme Court striking down Roe v. Wade, we’re only beginning to see the reach of that, so we have to really pay attention.”
Seemingly mindful of abortion politics, former President Donald Trump, Biden’s likely general election opponent, has publicly promoted his nomination of three Supreme Court justices who decided against Roe through Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022 while privately has reportedly spoken about the prospect of supporting a 16-week abortion ban. On Friday, Trump backed in vitro fertilization access after an Alabama Supreme Court ruling prompted clinics to stop fertility treatments.
Simultaneously, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have increased their scrutiny of Trump and other Republicans on abortion from the White House and the campaign trail, including in Michigan this week.
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“The previous president of the United States … openly talks about how he is proud of what has resulted,” Harris told reporters in Grand Rapids on Thursday. “Proud of the fact that doctors and nurses can be jailed for giving reproductive care?”
“Proud of the fact that women are being forced into situations where they could — literally, their life is at stake in terms of having a miscarriage and not being able to have the … medically required treatment?” she asked. “Proud of the fact that so many young women in America now have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers?”
