LANSING — Mike Rogers and Peter Meijer are in a “sticky wicket” as they “scramble” over their extensive anti-IVF records and face even more scrutiny for their dangerous stances. On Friday’s Off the Record, Michigan reporters discussed how Rogers and Meijer’s records “co-sponsoring” anti-IVF legislation makes it “even worse” for them. When asked about his support for personhood legislation, Rogers “very much essentially punted.”
Rogers co-sponsored four bills “attempting to define human life as beginning at the moment of fertilization,” and Meijer co-sponsored a fetal personhood bill. These bills “could restrict or effectively ban IVF.”
Michiganders deserve to know where Rogers and Meijer stand on “this Alabama Supreme Court decision [that] is going to or one some sort of similar case… make its way to the Trump Supreme Court” like the “Dobbs decision.”
WATCH: Off the Record on Mike Rogers and Peter Meijer’s extensive anti-IVF records
Tim Skubick: Here’s the sticky wicket for politicians. They have a record. How do you square if you’re a Mike Rogers or a Peter Meijer with what you said before? Okay. And what you’re saying now? And the critics say, “Yeah, now, when it’s popular, and the ghost of Proposal 3 is still alive and well in Michigan.” How are they playing this thing?
Bill Ballenger: Well, in Rogers’ case and in some others’, it’s not just the case of what they said in the past, it’s how they voted…
Skubick: Which is even worse.
Ballenger: Or what bill they sponsored. Which is even worse.
Zoe Clark: Or what they co-sponsored.
Ballenger: And now they’re scrambling…
Chad Livengood: When I caught up with Mike Rogers about this at an event last week, I asked him how he squares his past support for the personhood bills. And he, he very much essentially punted. He said, “I want the states to handle this. I think this is a health care decision the states should do.” But Democrats are going to come back and say, “Look, you either are going to be for a federal protection or this Alabama Supreme Court decision is going to or one some sort of similar case is going to make its way to the Trump Supreme Court.” And we know how that worked out in the Dobbs decision.
Zoe Clark: Yeah, one in eight families in the United States deals with infertility, one in eight. And so when you talk about what this means for folks, it is personal.
See also: Michigan Advance: ‘Republicans have put the rights of a fertilized egg over the rights of the woman’, Business Insider: GOP politicians are saying they’ve always cared about IVF. Bills they’ve supported indicate otherwise, The Gander: Mike Rogers tries to distance Senate campaign from past attempts to ban IVF.
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