The extremity of Proposal 3 is reminiscent of eugenics laws proposed and passed in the early 20th century.
According to Lutz Kaelber, associate professor of sociology at the University of Vermont, Michigan passed a law in 1923 which allowed doctors to sterilize those deemed mentally unstable.
In 1929, this law expanded to include individuals diagnosed as “insane,” “epileptic,” and as “moral degenerates.”
Under this law, 3,786 people were sterilized, with women making 76% of the sterilizations.
Kaelber cites a disturbing instance of a 13 year world girl whom the doctor sterilized because she was sexually abused by male family members.
These startling facts demonstrate that sterilization particularly targeted women, and that physicians and doctors interpreted these laws broadly.
Like these eugenics laws passed in the early 20th century, Prop. 3 runs the risk of grave interpretation errors.
Appearing on Michigan’s Nov. 8 ballot, the proposal seeks to ensure reproductive freedom–but what the proposal defines as “reproductive freedom” is expansive.
Prop. 3 states, “Every individual, has a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which entails the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, sterilization, abortion care, miscarriage management, and infertility care.”
The language is imprecise and vague, which guarantees long and bitter legal disputes. The language of the law brings into question certain norms and practices: Who counts as an individual? At what age do people have the right to make these sorts of decisions for themselves?
Like the eugenics laws of 1923, Prop. 3 takes liberties that could place children and young women in danger.
“As a matter of constitutional interpretation, then, the rights guaranteed by Prop. 3 would be rights that both adults and children possess as ‘individuals,’ and the rights apply equally to males and females,” wrote Margot Cleveland, senior legal correspondent at The Federalist.
By the proposal’s own loose wording, children without parental consent can seek “gender-affirming care” in the form of hormone blockers or sex-reassignment surgery, both of which render the child infertile as he or she matures into adulthood.
If this bill is supposed to focus on adult reproductive care, then groups such as the Michigan Organization on Adolescent Sexual Health and the American Federation of Teachers have no place endorsing the proposal.
Besides sterilization, “abortion care” is one of the enumerated “rights” granted to “individuals.” Because of the ambiguity of what an “individual” means, parental consent concerning both abortion and sterilization comes into question.
“In the context of abortion, Prop. 3 guts Michigan’s requirements for either parental consent or a judicial bypass, first by declaring that the amendment applies to all ‘individuals’ and second by expressly providing that ‘the state shall not discriminate in the protection or enforcement of this fundamental right,’” Cleveland said. “Treating females under 18 differently than those 18 or over is a textbook example of discrimination.”
Parental rights are already under attack. According to Cleveland, judges in states such as Alaska and Florida struck down parental consent laws, rendering them “unconstitutional.”
If Prop. 3 passes, and if red leaning states such as Alaska and Florida can issue such rulings, then Michigan stands next in line for eliminating the role of parental consent.
This lack of discrimination between individuals under and over 18 therefore places children and other minors at greater risk of sexual abuse, since the law cannot discriminate about who can access these services.
If concern over its radical stance on abortion is not enough to move people to vote against Prop. 3, then vote against it to protect the kids. Protect the young girls. Protect the women. Protect them before it’s too late.
