After the ultra-conservative majority on the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, faith leaders from across Michigan spoke out against this cruel decision.
Now, as extremist Republican lawmakers continue to go against the will of the people by pushing an agenda that would ban abortion without exceptions and even jail doctors who provide them, faith leaders continue to speak out in support of Michiganders’ right to bodily autonomy.
Here’s what Michiganders are hearing from faith leaders:
Bishop Bonnie A. Perry of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan: “I am a Christian. I am the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan. I oversee 74 congregations and communities of faith in southeast and south-central Michigan: some 17,000 people. I am pro-choice. I support a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body. The teaching in the Episcopal Church since 1967 — explicitly supports a woman’s right to determine if and when she will decide to have a child.”
Rabbi Asher Lopatin, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of metro Detroit: “Our religion says that is the woman’s right … to make that decision, and any decision by any court or by any statehouse across this country that says that the woman does not have that right violates the Jewish religion.”
Reverend Christopher Roe, acting senior minister at Fountain Street Church: “My heart breaks, my anger rises, and my hope feels dimmed by [the] official announcement that reproductive justice, freedom, and rights are no longer promised or protected in our nation.”
Reverend Greta Jo Seidohl of Fountain Street Church: “Pregnant-capable people deserve and have the sacred right to make their own choices about their bodies, about how to have families, when to have families, if to have children, and that sort of thing–how to take care of themselves.”
While access to safe, legal abortion is still available in Michigan thanks to Governor Whitmer and Democrats, the Supreme Court’s decision further emboldens Michigan Republicans to continue their harmful efforts to restrict reproductive rights. Every single Michigan Republican governor, attorney general, and secretary of state candidate have made it clear that they will ban abortion without exceptions and prosecute doctors for performing the service – meaning that the right to choose in Michigan is on the ballot this fall. That’s why Democrats are fighting to protect our reproductive rights from the state level to the national.
