Ten years ago, as Michigan’s Republican-led Legislature was on the verge of passing one of the nation’s most restrictive anti-abortion laws at the time, a 42-year-old state senator from East Lansing took to the Senate floor to speak out against what she knew was about to happen.
Minutes into her speech, Democrat Gretchen Whitmer tossed aside her prepared remarks and revealed for the first time publicly that she had been raped while attending college. Had she become pregnant, Whitmer said, she would not have been able to afford an abortion under the proposed law.
The bill, which Whitmer had derisively called “rape insurance” because it required women to declare when buying health insurance whether they expected to receive an abortion, passed anyway. But Whitmer, now in her second term as Michigan’s governor after winning reelection by nearly 11 percentage points in 2022, this week removed the requirement from state law with the stroke of a pen after Michigan’s Democratic-controlled Legislature sent her a bill tossing it aside.
“It’s kind of a stunning full-circle moment where it does reinforce that these fights are worth having and they’re winnable, even if sometimes it takes a little longer than it should,” Whitmer said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press.
I know people who live in rural Michigan and you’d think she was the literal devil by the way some talk about her. They never usually elaborate after saying ‘this place has gone to shit because of her’.
She seems like an upgrade to the old senile dudes running my state.
I once worked with a guy who was from Michigan. He had no shortage of things to say about those “facking yoopers.”
She’s a real cool cat :)
Edits: Also her name reminds me of the girl from Recess so that’s alright as well
Edit: Canada’s positive influence rubs off on border States perhaps…
She’s the party’s leader and top talent in the Midwest. Good bench for the dems… “Big Gretch” probably looks good on a bumper sticker.
I think the redistricting in 2020 helped more than abortion but I think both have been a real positive.
Yep, plus mail-in voting. Michigan is a lot bluer than people think.
Big Gretch for President. I’ve been to her home a few times and she’s always taken the time to engage in conversation as a down to earth person.
She’s always been a wonderful conversationalist, person, and is a politician that genuinely cares about making peoples’ lives better.
She has my vote when she decides to run.
This is good to hear. I’ve heard she’s very much a politician first, actual person second from people who knew her, but that’s all secondhand.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Minutes into her speech, Democrat Gretchen Whitmer tossed aside her prepared remarks and revealed for the first time publicly that she had been raped while attending college.
Whitmer recalled the hundreds of calls and emails she received after her 2013 speech as a turning point for her, the moment when she realized how much people care about protecting a woman’s right to choose whether she should have an abortion.
It’s a lesson she hopes to drive home all over the country as one of the nation’s leading abortion rights advocates during what could prove to be a pivotal election year for the issue in 2024.
When constitutional questions about abortion rights appeared on the ballot, even voters in Republican-leaning states from Kansas to Ohio rejected GOP-backed efforts to curb them.
Michigan was a critical component of the so-called blue wall of states, including Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, that Biden returned to the Democratic column, helping him win the White House in 2020.
Whitmer, who is co-chair of Biden’s reelection campaign and has herself been frequently mentioned as a future presidential candidate, deflected questions Monday about his chances in Michigan, insisting that she was only going to “focus on reproductive rights today.”
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The state government turned blue finally.
The messed up (and woefully misattributed) thing is that sort of has nothing to do with Democrats or even Whitmer.
In 2018, Whitmer won while on a midterm ballot that featured Marijuana legalization, and a redistricting measure that promised to dramatically reduce gerrymandering. Both of these initiatives had been widely talked about by the Democratic Party, but were not supported as a platform of theirs.
In 2020, the democrats saw huge gains amidst continuing anti-trump sentiment, a voter-led abortion rights amendment, and a presidential election (which historically benefit democrats).
In 2022, the 2018 redistricting measure had born fruit, and Michigan had elections that fairly represented the populous, all while the Republican Party in Michigan continued to be disorganized and an abject failure as a political body.
Don’t get me wrong - I think Whitmer is actually a pretty great governor, and I do believe she is very capable. But I think a lot of folks are ascribing capability to happenstance. I’d hate for a lot of hopes to be pinned on her, and then those hopes never bear fruit.
2022 was the voter-led abortion amendment. I think you’re right though, Whitmer is a standard liberal in a similar vein as Joe Biden. She’s a very much a politician benefitting greatly from the Michigan GOPs absolute chaos. I’d honestly love for her to be the conservative candidate vs. an actual progressive change.
Oh, you’re right! Serves me right for relying on memory.
Agree fully with you about the rest.
