NARAL Pro-Choice America Leader Denounces Michigan Initiative in Ann Arbor Speech

Washington DC – At a panel this evening at the University of Michigan Law School, NARAL Pro-Choice America President Kate Michelman called on Michigan residents to resist the so-called “citizen’s initiative” effort that would enact a near-total ban on abortion over Governor Granholm’s veto. Ms. Michelman was joined by former state senator Alma Wheeler Smith and Dr. Laslo Sogor, OB/GYN and Chief of Cleveland Planned Parenthood, in a discussion about the threat to privacy posed by the Bush Administration and its anti-choice allies in Michigan.

Michelman also called on Michigan students and other pro-choice residents to stand up against government intrusions into personal decisions by joining NARAL Pro-Choice America at the March for Women’s Live in Washington, DC on April 25.

According to Ms. Michelman: “If this initiative is successful, just eight percent of the Michigan electorate will have succeeded in enacting the most extreme abortion ban passed by any state in recent years. Michigan women face a stark future if this bill becomes law, a return to the days when government dictated our personal decisions, and women’s only option was an unsafe, illegal abortion.”

Michelman concluded by urging the people of Michigan to join her at the April 25 March for Women’s Lives in Washington, D.C. and send a message to public officials that Americans will not let their rights be taken away. Michelman asked members of the audience to help fill buses, send demonstrators, and “put on some shoe leather” themselves. 

Contact:
Ted Miller, 202.973.3032