FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
News from Progress Michigan
December 11, 2014
Contact: Sam Inglot, 616-916-0574, sam@
Bills to Restrict Women’s Health Care Rights Pass Senate
Right to Life-backed bills do nothing to protect women
LANSING – Today, the Michigan Senate passed a package of Right to Life-backed bills, Senate Bills 1156 and 1157, that make it harder for a woman to make her own health care decision about whether or not to have a safe, legal abortion. The bills do not include protections for a woman who wants to have an abortion but is pressured not to.
“This is an obvious attempt to make it even harder for women to make their own personal and private health care decisions, just as we saw the Republican Legislature do when they pushed the rape insurance bill into law last year,” said Hugh Madden, communications director for Progress Michigan. “These bills do nothing to protect women who are coerced into becoming pregnant or women who are forced to continue a pregnancy that they may not want.”
There are already laws on the books that protect women from the coercion and discrimination these bills aim to address. Legislators should be focusing on improving access to reproductive and prenatal health care, expanding access to contraceptives, and providing better sex education to young people if they want to reduce the number of abortions in Michigan.
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