FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
News from Progress Michigan
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Contact: Jessica Tramontana, 517-974-6302, jessica@progressmichigan.org
Right to Life lobbyist pulled several politicians away from budget votes before getting tossed from Capitol
LANSING – Progress Michigan today condemned anti-choice extremists for illegal campaigning in our State Capitol and the Senate Office Building. Right to Life lobbyist Ed Rivet was photographed collecting signatures from Republican senators for his rape insurance petition drive during a Senate session on the 2013-14 budget. After being asked to leave the Capitol, he was caught on video walking into the Senate office building to collect more signatures. Last week, Right to Life president Barbara Listing said that petition signatures would only be collected by volunteers.
“After basing their entire ballot drive on a lie, anti-choice radicals flouted state election law by campaigning in the Capitol,” said Jessica Tramontana, Communications Director of Progress Michigan. “It’s absurd that Republican politicians think it’s acceptable for them to be aiding this political campaign when they are supposed to be working for Michigan families. Lansing politicians should be protecting women and families by supporting Medicaid expansion, which would protect more than 300,000 of Michigan’s most vulnerable families and children, not campaigning for radical initiatives that have been vetoed by two Republican governors.”
Anti-choice extremists have named their ballot committee “No Taxes for Abortion Insurance” and repeat that premise in campaign statements and emails, but tax money paying for abortions is already banned several times in federal law.
They also claim that Michigan would simply be following the lead of dozens of states by barring health exchanges established under the ACA from covering abortion, but this is another lie. In an assault on the relationship between women and their insurance companies, the initiative would mandate that no regular private insurance plans can cover abortions, even in the case of rape or incest.
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NOTE: Pictures and video of Ed Rivet collecting petition signatures from Republican politicians can be viewed here: https://progressmichigan.org/2013/06/based-on-a-lie/