Despite clear public support for women's reproductive rights, Michigan's Republican-controlled Legislature used the just-ended lame-duck session to ram through harmful measures eliminating insurance coverage of abortions and imposing medically unnecessary regulations on providers of safe and legal abortion care.
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The state's Republican governor, Rick Snyder, can show real leadership and demonstrate respect for women in his state by refusing to sign these ideologically driven bills into law.
The first measure would bar insurance coverage for abortion services without the purchase of an additional "rider" at added expense. The restriction would extend to both plans purchased through the health insurance exchanges created by the federal health care reform law and to private insurance plans sold outside the exchanges.
There is a single exception limited to life endangerment, but none for a woman's health or cases of incest or rape — an omission that shows Republican lawmakers learned nothing from the public's rejection of reprehensible attitudes toward sexual assault that led to the defeat of Republican Senate candidates in other states in November.
A second measure would make it harder for reproductive health offices to stay in business by requiring facilities that provide 120 or more abortion a year to comply with new staffing, equipment and physical plant requirements, essentially regulating them as "mini-hospitals" even in the absence of a real medical or safety need.
The measure contains a waiver provision for some existing facilities, but it is unclear how state officials would use it. What is certain is some women's health clinics will have trouble meeting the new requirements and some may be forced to close. That would reduce access to needed abortion care as well as a variety of other essential services, like cancer screenings, to suit the agenda of opponents of abortion rights.
Another damaging section in this bill would hurt low-income and rural women particularly by barring the use of medicine abortions when doctors oversee the procedure through online consultations with the patient. Under such a regimen, patients are examined at a local health clinic by an on-site professional and then electronically consult with a doctor working at a different location who would review her health records, answer questions, and approve the pills. In other contexts, Mr. Snyder has voiced support for expanding the use of telemedicine to improve access to health care.
Mr. Snyder has already done enough to advance his party's right-wing agenda by signing new anti-union legislation earlier this month turning Michigan into a right-to-work state. He should not follow that up by acquiescing to a retreat on women's health and reproductive rights. He should veto the bills.
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