“Thrilled and relieved,” is how Ingham County resident Raina Korbakis described feeling learning that Michigan voters had approved Proposal 3 in November’s midterm election.
The Reproductive Freedom for All ballot initiative, which passed 56 percent to 43 percent, explicitly establishes the right to abortion, contraception, and other forms of reproductive healthcare in the state’s constitution. With this victory, Michigan is the first to overturn an existing anti-abortion state law since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade earlier this year.
After successes for abortion rights in Kansas this past summer, and the defeat of anti-abortion initiative Amendment 2 in Kentucky, this win in Michigan provides the momentum needed for advocates elsewhere to demonstrate a strong conviction about the role that ballot initiatives can play, especially in Republican-controlled states.
In the Midwest, where GOP control has expanded in recent decades, Michigan stands as an encouraging example for how gerrymandered districts and disenfranchised voters can organize to reclaim their stolen rights. It’s clear this fight isn’t only about Michigan, but one piece of a growing, diverse coalition fighting back against extreme rightwing legislatures determined to push through as many anti-choice bills as possible in the leadup to a possible federal ban.
“This is really important for the country, not just Michigan,” Korbakis says. “I hope other states look to us in coming up with a plan. We expect we will see people coming here for care and we need to ensure that they, too, have easy access to abortion, and hopefully we can provide funding.”
Michigan is bordered by Indiana and Ohio, two aggressively abortion-hostile states. While Democrats retained the governorship in Wisconsin, Republicans still picked up seats in both chambers of the state legislature, strengthening their existing control. Wisconsin’s 1849 anti-abortion law remains on the books.
Korbakis, who says she was not generally politically active before the Dobbs decision, first got involved with the initiative by collecting signatures. “This issue changed everything,” she says. “I felt like I couldn’t sit on the sidelines anymore after what happened with Roe, after watching our rights being stripped away from us.” Eventually, Korbakis became the East Lansing Coordinator for the Prop 3 campaign for Reproductive Freedom for All.
Across the state, non-activist Michiganders, some who had never even voted before, were spurred to action, becoming canvassers and organizers. “When the Dobbs decision was formally released, we had thousands of people reach out asking ‘How do I help, what do I do?’ ” Julie Rowe, legislative and political organizing director at Reproductive Freedom For All (RFFA) tells The Progressive.
For rural western Michigan resident Amanda Mazur, who also hadn’t been politically active before the campaign, getting involved was more personal.
“We had a wanted pregnancy that received a devastating prognosis and needed to seek later abortion care. As hard as that experience was, I later realized as people around the country were losing access to abortion, that we were lucky to be able receive that compassionate care in the state we lived,” Mazur, a mom of two, says.
“With the fall of Roe and all of the new bans being activated across the United States, and the 1931 Michigan ban looming, that just made me further commit to seeing this initiative through,” she adds, “because nothing has played a more vital role in my well-being and that of my family.”
“A lot of people who would have called themselves pro-life had to think differently because they didn’t have the Roe paradigm anymore. They had to think about what abortion really is, that it is healthcare.”
Mazur explains that, in her outreach efforts, she spoke to conservative-leaning older women who, despite their politics or voting history, clearly remembered a time before Roe and were motivated to sign in support: “Even though their politics were more conservative now, they had first-hand experience with it and they knew what that loss of rights meant.”
Similarly, among the hundreds of voters Rowe spoke with during this cycle, many self-identifying pro-life voters were beginning to think about the issue in a new light.
“Without Roe, people had to think much more specifically about what they thought about abortion. And that’s a new conversation for so many people,” Rowe says. “A lot of people who would have called themselves pro-life had to think differently because they didn’t have the Roe paradigm anymore. They had to think about what abortion really is, that it is healthcare.”
Stephanie Comai, a former Republican and Prop 3 campaign volunteer, says the decision to get involved in the efforts was easy, citing women’s health and family decision-making as two big reasons. “Top of the ticket Michigan Republicans have horrific language around rape and incest victims, viewing pregnancy as a healing opportunity,” she tells The Progressive.
Comai, who previously worked for two Republican governors, felt appalled that Michigan GOP leadership had no plan after the Roe reversal, instead relying on the 1931 law, which provided minimal exceptions. “When this bill was passed, women had only had the right to vote for about a decade,” Comai says. “I cannot tell you how many of my former colleagues were just disgusted with the party and candidates’ positions [on abortion].”
Rowe highlights how the campaign spoke with countless people who were Republicans or considered themselves pro-life and ended up volunteering, donating, or voting yes on the proposition. Korbakis had similar experiences: “We had a broad coalition of supporters state-wide and from all walks of life.”
One of those supporters, former Republican strategist Jeff Timmer, shared his reason in a video for RFFA. Timmer was the former director of the Michigan Republican party, spending thirty years advising GOP candidates and elected officials. He called the idea that the government might force one of his three daughters to deliver their rapist’s baby “monstrous.”
“That they or their doctor could become criminals because of pregnancy is insane,” he said in the video. “Let’s decide that we trust women to make their own medical decisions and avoid going back to a 1931 law that bans abortion in nearly all cases including rape, incest, and threats to a woman’s health.”
Activists recognize that there’s still more work to do. Under Proposal 3, abortion will continue to be highly regulated in Michigan. Later abortions will follow the same standard as they did under Roe. Parental involvement—the requirement that parents be notified by a minor seeking an abortion is already state law.
“Abortion and reproductive care isn’t accessible in many areas of the state, including my area,” says Mazur. “That’s the next phase of the fight here. I hope people don’t just think we won on this issue and we can move forward and not worry about it, because that’s what everyone thought after Roe. This is clearly not something we can get complacent about.”
Likewise, newly minted organizer Korbakis intends to stay in the work moving forward: “This victory was a big relief, but [there’s] still a lot of work to do. We won’t stop.”