Lansing Lines is presented in cooperation with MIRS, a Lansing-based news and information service.
Abortion Provider, Student Group Challenge Access Restrictions
A Michigan abortion provider and a pro-abortion rights student group filed a Michigan Court of Claims case challenging three abortion restrictions, including Michigan’s 24-hour waiting period.
Northland Family Planning Centers and Medical Students for Choice also challenge the dissemination of certain information to a patient before an abortion and prohibitions on the ability of advanced practice clinicians to perform abortions, according to the lawsuit filed recently.
“Through the RFFA, Michigan voters overwhelmingly declared that they will not tolerate paternalistic and medically baseless restrictions on abortion like those we are challenging in this case,” said Rabia Muqaddam, senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “With this lawsuit, we hope to eliminate these harmful restrictions and ensure the state’s laws reflect the will of Michigan voters.”
The RFFA – Reproductive Freedom for All – is a constitutional amendment passed on Nov. 8, 2022.
Renee Chelian, executive director of Northland Family Planning Centers added: “Every day, and especially since Roe (v. Wade) was overturned, our providers and clinic staff work tirelessly to meet the needs of both Michigan residents and out-of-state patients.
“Despite our win with Proposal 3, patients continue to face onerous barriers to care imposed by Michigan law. These barriers should not exist under the RFFA,” she added.
Named defendants are Attorney General Dana Nessel , who has been a staunch proponent of abortion rights and whose office will defend the state against the suit, as well as Department of Health and Human Services Director Elizabeth Hertel and Marlon I. Brown, acting director of the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs.
In light of the RFFA, the Legislature repealed some abortion restrictions in its last legislative session, but retained some, including the 24-hour waiting period, which the plaintiffs’ suit alleges “are most burdensome on patients.”
The lawsuit argues that these restrictions violate the RFFA by imposing medically unjustified restrictions on abortion, singling out abortion for uniquely onerous treatment, and discriminating against Michiganders who already face health inequities, including Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, low-income communities and people in rural areas of the state.
“Every time our student members train to provide abortion care under prohibitive regulations that are contrary to the standard of care, like those in Michigan, MSFC has to fill the gap to ensure that they learn the best evidence-based practices,” said Pamela MERRITT, executive director of Medical Students for Choice. “Tomorrow’s abortion providers studying in Michigan should be able to train in an environment that supports evidence-based medicine and preserves patient autonomy and the clinician-patient relationship.”
The filing comes as the state also battles a lawsuit filed by Right to Life of Michigan, three GOP lawmakers and others that asks the federal courts to overturn the abortion rights amendment passed in 2022.
Physician Assistants Believe More People Are Dying Because Of This…
A Michigander dies from suicide every six hours, totaling more than 1,400 people each year, said Alison Badger, psychiatric physician assistant (P.A.) with Michigan Medicine.
In the eight years since P.A.s first proposed being added to the state’s Mental Health Code as a mental health professional, Badger said Michigan has lost more than 12,000 people to suicide.
“These are preventable deaths,” she said. “How long are we going to keep doing this? How are we going to justify that we’re doing this, that we’re squabbling over initials in the mental health code, while people die because they don’t have access to care.”
Badger was one of several P.A.s and healthcare educators who testified in the House Health Policy Behavioral Health Subcommittee on behalf of Rep. Carrie A. RHEINGANS (D-Ann Arbor)’
HB 5114 , which expands the state Mental Health Code’s definition of a mental health professional to include physician assistants (or physician associates), certified nurse practitioners and specialist-certified clinical nurses.
Rheingans said she introduced the bill, part of the bipartisan “Patient-Led Care Bill Package,” to address Michigan’s compounding mental health crisis.
She said 4.2 million Michiganders currently live in a mental health professional shortage area, and 30 percent of Michiganders with a mental illness have an unmet treatment need, ramping up to 72 percent if it’s a substance use treatment need.
“In other words, there are thousands of Michiganders struggling with behavioral health issues right now and unable to receive necessary care,” she said.
Rheingans said nearly 30 other states already recognize these healthcare workers for their education and training in psychiatric medicine, but because they’re not officially included in Michigan’s legal definition of mental health professionals, “sometimes they’re unable to provide aspects of needed behavioral health care.”
Thadd Gormas, executive director of the Michigan Academy of Physician Associates, said his association supports the bill because it doesn’t change the psychiatrists’ role as the only mental health providers who can involuntarily admit a patient.
Badger shared her personal testimony that the inability to operate as a P.A. and mental health professional has made it difficult to treat patients.
“When it’s many, many people, that’s a statistic,” she said, “but when it’s one patient, when it’s one story, that’s a tragedy.”
In one example, Badger said she was the only provider working late on a Saturday, waiting on a special admission from an outside hospital, an elderly woman who was both medically ill and psychotically depressed.
“She was coming from another hospital because there was a delay at the hospital (which) was sending her to us. Her first certification had expired by the time she arrived,” Badger said. “I couldn’t admit her. I couldn’t give her medicine. I couldn’t have her lie down. I had her sit in a room alone, terrified, shaking, ill, while I went and hunted up a physician. Just a physician – didn’t have to be a psychiatrist.
“I could have found anybody. I could have found a resident in their first week of training to sign that cert,” she said, expressing frustration that medical students with much less experience have more technical authority in cases like this.
In some cases, this has resulted in some of her colleagues leaving the state, Badger said, sharing the story of one P.A. student who moved specifically to Michigan for the University of Michigan – Flint’s P.A. program.
“She’s going back to Ohio to practice, because she knows about the problem with our mental health code,” Badger said. “She wants to be able to use her training and her skills. She wants to save lives. She wants to prevent suicide, and so do we.”
Rheingans’ HB 5114 would allow P.A.s and nurse practitioners to examine patients prior to involuntary treatment and provide treatment recommendations, sign clinical certificates before hospitalization and authorize seclusion or temporary restraints if necessary. It’s similar to previously introduced SB 191, which passed the Senate in 2021 but did not advance past the House Health Policy Committee.
The bill was supported by the Michigan Manufacturers Association, the Michigan Association of Colleges of Nursing, the Michigan Health and Hospital Association, the Michigan Council of Nurse Practitioners, United Way of Northwest Michigan, the Michigan Osteopathic Association, the Michigan Association of Health Plans and the National Association of Social Workers in Michigan.
It was opposed by the Michigan State Medical Society and the Michigan Psychiatric Society, both of which did not testify in opposition. Neither group responded to a MIRS request for comment, but the Michigan State Medical Society previously opposed the “Patient-Led Care Bill Package” for its potential to create confusion and cloud medical transparency.
The bill awaits further action in the Behavioral Health Subcommittee.
Whitmer Still Backs That ‘It Would Be Good’ For Biden To Talk About Abortion More
(DETROIT) – Gov. Gretchen Whitmer continues to back her statement that “it would be good” if President Joe Biden talked more about abortion in his reelection race, addressing her “Face the Nation” comments at a political event last month.
“I just simply mean that as we have done in Michigan, we’ve talked about this right in a way that really is reflective of how women in our families are just trying to conduct their lives and make their own individual decisions,” Whitmer said to the media today, following the Jan. 21 release of her CBS News program interview. “Abortion is an important part of healthcare for women, and so I think … it’s important to talk about it that way.”
Whitmer’s national political action committee (PAC), Fight Like Hell PAC, hosted an event at the Motor City Java House in Northwest Detroit promoting Biden’s reelection bid. The appearance comes after events in Flint and East Lansing over the weekend.
She was also featured on a press call held by the Democratic Governors Association, saying that in today’s Republican Party, “the standard bearers have the ultimate goal of banning abortion in all 50 states,” regardless of if one is residing in Michigan.
The governor, a co-chair of Biden’s reelection campaign, continued to receive national attention on Sunday after she said “I think it would be good” if Biden talked more about abortion – a topic the Democratic president said he’s “not big on” because of his identity as a practicing Catholic.
When asked by “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan if she thinks Biden needs to be the messenger on abortion more, Whitmer said “I don’t think it would hurt. I think people want to know that this is a president that is fighting, and I think he has said that, to use maybe more blunt language – maybe that would be helpful.”
MIRS questioned why Whitmer feels that members of her own party struggle to have blunt and candid talks about abortion. She said she doesn’t know if it comes more easily to her because she’s a woman.
“I understand what abortion means to our ability to make our own decisions and to chart our lives. I’m not quite sure how to explain it – all I know is that the average person gets it,” Whitmer said. “We’ve got to keep open seats at the table for people who understand how serious this moment is and why this threat of a national abortion ban is real and scary.”
Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022 – more than 49 years after the landmark case was initially decided on Jan. 22, 1973 – giving states the authority to majorly regulate, permit or outlaw abortion on their own terms.
Months later in Michigan, Proposal 3 of 2022, a ballot question to enshrine abortion access as a state-constitutional right, was supported by more than 2.48 million voters. It won by more votes than what Michigan’s top three statewide executives won by (Whitmer won by 2.43 million, Attorney General Dana Nessel won by 2.3 million and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson won by more than 2.46 million).
As of June 30, Whitmer’s national PAC to support pro-abortion candidates had around $165,624 on-hand after obtaining $116,502 in total contributions from June 5-30 – a 25-day period. Meanwhile, as of the October Quarterly, which ended on Oct. 20, the Reproductive Freedom For All ballot question committee – the one behind Prop. 3 of 2022 – had more than $2 million in leftover cash.
However, as for how voters are responding to the abortion topic now, a MIRS-commissioned poll, conducted from Jan. 1-10 with 600 likely Democratic primary voters, found that 13 percent of respondents viewed abortion as “the number one issue” that the federal government should focus on.
Meanwhile, 27 percent believed it was climate and the environment; 12 percent felt it was healthcare quality, access and cost; and 8 percent felt it was jobs and the economy. Also significantly, 21 percent said they were undecided or did not know what the federal government – the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House and the White House – should focus on.
Among surveyed Republican primary voters – with 7 percent identifying as “Soft Republican” and 12 percent as independent Republicans – 4 percent wanted abortion to be focused on.
Additionally, 37 percent of those Republican respondents wanted the federal government to zoom in on immigration, 14 percent on inflation and prices and 11 percent on taxes and government spending.
In attendance the event– with other speakers including U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Birmingham), Reproductive Freedom For All Midwest Manager Tessa Gawrylowicz, Wayne County Commissioner Alisha Bell and Planned Parenthood of Michigan Dr. Sarah Wallett – was Julie Campbell-Bode, the co-founder and director of operations of Distill Social.
Distill Social is a pro-abortion media group with an X community of more than 6,700 followers.
“I think President Biden has done a great job in many areas, but this is something we need to talk to people about … personally, I don’t think it’s fair that here we are living in Michigan, and we fought like hell to obviously protect our reproductive rights … but I can drive four hours down the road to Indiana and there are women down there that are being forced to make really tragic choices,” Campbell-Bode said. “I think that President Biden should talk about it more.”
When asked if threats of a potential federal abortion ban is a “boogeyman” scenario, Campbell-Bode said a lot of people thought of the possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned as a boogeyman threat as well.
“If we go to sleep at the wheel again, it will be our fault if that happens if the opportunity arises,” she said, explaining earlier that “we have a large following of almost 100,000 young people on TikTok, and anything that has any focus on reproductive health care really fires everybody up … quite frankly, still any social media posting we do around this issue is still our most popular.”