". . . and having done all . . . stand firm." Eph. 6:13

Newsletter

The News You Need

Subscribe to The Washington Stand

X
Commentary

Michigan Hides Kids’ Trans Rights in Abortion Amendment: Prop 3’s Secret Revealed

October 17, 2022

If you asked Michigan voters what Proposal 3 is about, most of them would say “abortion.” They’d be half right. Turns out, the state’s extremists have buried something equally horrifying in the text: a complete abolition of parents’ rights. Not only would moms and dads be powerless to stop their daughters’ abortions under the radical initiative, they’d also have zero say in their children’s gender transitions.

Hidden in the proposal’s language, The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland warns, are a handful of very dangerous sentences that would — unbelievably — create a constitutional right for children to mutilate their bodies over their parents’ objections. Cloaked in a section about “reproductive freedom,” the authors smuggle in text that is cunningly written to protect everyone’s right to medical treatment (including sterilization), regardless of age.

“A state interest is ‘compelling,’” Proposal 3 explains, “only if it is for the limited purpose of protecting the health of an individual seeking care, consistent with accepted clinical standards of practice and evidence-based medicine, and does not infringe on that individual’s autonomous decision-making.”

In other words, if voters agree to this, Cleveland sounds the alarm, it will “guarantee” that the state lawmakers “cannot interfere in transgender minors’ decision to obtain puberty blockers or surgical ‘gender reassignment’ through castration, removal of ovaries, or a hysterectomy.” As Section 4 makes quite clear, the state will go to great lengths to protect “an individual’s autonomous decision-making” — even if that individual is under 18.

“Children will have a right under the Michigan constitution to walk into one of Planned Parenthood’s 12 so-called ‘gender-affirming’ facilities in the state and, without parental knowledge or consent, obtain puberty blockers,” Cleveland writes. And thanks to the rise of telemed, it won’t be long until they don’t even have to leave the house to get their hands on a whole array of life-altering drugs.

At the end of the day, Cleveland insists, “Prop 3 isn’t about codifying Roe. It’s about sacrificing the children of Michigan — both born and unborn.”

For Planned Parenthood, one of the country’s biggest cross-sex hormone pushers, passing this amendment would be a major moneymaking coup. Apart from giving the organization a direct line to confused kids, the initiative would blow the doors off of every pro-life regulation — opening the floodgates to abortion on demand at any time, for any reason, through all nine months of pregnancy. It would mean, Alliance Defending Freedom’s John Bursch pointed out on “Washington Watch,” that the unborn would not “have any protection whatsoever.”

“If a woman was in the abortionist’s clinic on the due date and said, ‘I’m really stressed and anxious about having this baby, I’m not sure if I can handle having a child right now …’ the abortionist could [grant her request].” The partial-birth abortion ban, abortion survivors’ protections act, parental consent — every commonsense law protecting life would be wiped off the face of the Michigan map.

Family Research Council’s Mary Szoch urged voters to think long and hard about their decision. “Proposal 3 would change Michigan from a state that protects unborn children and their mothers from the exploitations of the abortion industry into one that permanently allows anyone — including people who are not licensed physicians — to kill an unborn child at any point during the pregnancy for any reason. It would place Michigan’s laws on life in line with the notorious human rights violators of North Korea and China. Anyone who cares about the dignity of the human person must vote NO.”

Pro-abortion activists have been reveling in the proposition’s popularity, which was enjoying 2-1 support in the polls until these latest revelations came to light. Now that Michiganders are starting to understand what the language would actually do, it will be interesting to see if the Left’s gambit pays off. As The Hill pointed out this week, parents’ rights are an area of extreme vulnerability for Democrats — a fact their secrecy in the Wolverine State confirms. The idea that they had to sneak this garbage into a completely unrelated bill shows just how unpopular the transgender agenda is.

In a nation already outraged by the envelope Democrats are pushing, this will be more proof, Family Research Council’s Meg Kilgannon told The Washington Stand, that “parental rights are not just forgotten but under attack.” “Opening the door to the delivery of life-altering (or life-ending) medical procedures, including so-called ‘gender affirmation’ behind the backs of parents is irresponsible and endangers the very children it supposedly empowers. Children are not capable of understanding the consequences of their actions — a fact parents understand better than the politicians and activists responsible for Prop 3. Voters who want to preserve the innocence and health of children and vulnerable teens should vote NO.”

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.



Amplify Our Voice for Truth