Life Issues in Lansing: Legislative Update

While federal legislators in Washington, D.C., have been engrossed in the debate over health care reform, bills involving issues prolife people are concerned with have also been introduced on the state level.

In June of 2009, a package of bills known as “Prevention First” was introduced in the Michigan state House of Representatives. When they were introduced, they received the support of pro-abortion organizations including Planned Parenthood which claimed the bills included “four of (their) five legislative priorities.”

The package of 11 bills addressed a wide range of issues including requiring insurance coverage for birth control and infertility treatments, forcing crisis pregnancy centers to give women a list of abortion providers and requiring pharmacists to fill every prescription they receive.

On September 9, 2009, the House Judiciary Committee took up the package of bills and made various changes before voting on them. Two of the bills opposed by Right to Life of Michigan were voted down, and the bill to regulate crisis pregnancy centers was changed so dramatically that it no longer threatens prolife pregnancy centers. While the bill regarding pharmacists was modified, it still doesn’t provide proper conscience rights protections. Right to Life of Michigan still opposes three of the remaining nine bills.

Due to the broad range of groups who oppose one or more of the bills voted out of committee, Democratic leaders have no plans to bring any of these bills up for a vote on the House floor any time in the near future. Right to Life of Michigan will continue to monitor the bills and will post updates on the Right to Life of Michigan web site, www.rtl.org, as needed.

Dealing with the aftermath of Proposal 2

Proposal 2 was a 2008 ballot referendum which legalized experimenting on and killing human embryos for research in Michigan. In response to the unfortunate passage of Proposal 2, Michigan’s prolife legislators are working to prevent researchers from pushing the envelope of human embryo experimentation even further. In June, a package of prolife bills entitled the Embryo Research and Fertility Clinic Transparency Act was introduced to prohibit researchers from creating human embryos for research, prohibit the buying and selling of human embryos, prohibit cloned embryos from being trafficked into Michigan and require fertility clinics to provide a report on how many human embryos they create, donate to research, destroy and implant.

Senator Tom George plans on bringing these bill before the Senate Health Policy Committee in October.

If you have specific questions about legislation, please contact the RLM Legislative Office at (517) 487-3376. You can also watch for updates on Right to Life of Michigan’s web site, www.rtl.org.

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