Michigan Radio has a post up titled “Michigan signs on in support of federal effort to deny abortions to undocumented minors“. In truth, this is being done solely by our extremist, far-right conservative Attorney General, Bill “Shady” Schuette. Schuette, who has been running for governor for over a decade, has a long sordid history of using Michigan tax dollars to pursue his radical agenda (which I have documented HERE.)
In this latest round, Schuette signed on in support of the defendants (the Trump administration) in a lawsuit attempting to halt the efforts of our government to prevent detained teen immigrants from obtaining legal abortions while they are held in custody by the federal government:
Michigan has taken the side of the Trump administration in its attempts to block detained teen immigrants from getting abortions while in federal custody.
The American Civil Liberties Union represents the undocumented, unaccompanied minors in a lawsuit against the Trump administration.
The lawsuit says many of them have been sexually abused or assaulted either in their home countries, during their journeys to the U.S., or after their arrivals.
The lawsuit claims the Trump administration is violating the teens’ constitutional rights by preventing them from terminating their pregnancies and by forcing them to visit anti-abortion pregnancy crisis centers.
Attorney General Bill Schuette has joined ten other states in a brief that was filed earlier this week. It argues the minors have no constitutional right to an abortion because there is no evidence that they have “developed substantial connections with the country.”
Again, Michigan has not “taken the side of the Trump administration.” Bill Schuette has. Because if there’s one thing Bill “Shady” Schuette won’t pass up it’s an opportunity to throw red meat to his rabidly right-wing supporters. And he has no problem spending our tax dollars to do so. He is, after all, the same guy who is using tax dollars to fill his staff with campaign operatives who are working to get him elected as our state’s next governor.
It’s quite likely that, like in so many previous cases, Schuette and those he supports will end up on the losing side of this lawsuit. Three previous attempts to block young immigrant women from obtaining this medical procedure have been thwarted so there’s little reason to expect this situation to end any differently.