(Source: MIRS.news, Published 06/27/2024) A new lawsuit filed Thursday challenges Michigan’s ban on Medicaid-funded abortions, arguing the law violates the constitutional right to reproductive freedom that voters enshrined in the Constitution in November 2022.

The complaint, filed in the Court of Claims on behalf of the YWCA Kalamazoo, comes two days after a judge blocked enforcement of state regulations, including the 24-hour waiting period.

“Once the state chooses to provide health insurance to the people of Michigan, it cannot selectively exclude critical and constitutionally protected health care, like abortion,” Bonsitu Kitaba, deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, said in a press conference today.

Amber Roseboom, president of Right to Life of Michigan, said the lawsuit is “abortion-obsessed activists” attempt to do what they “failed to garner support for in the legislative process” – forcing Michigan taxpayers to pay for someone’s abortion through Medicaid dollars.

“Radical activists are appeasing their big money donors and special interest groups while showing complete disregard for Michigan taxpayers and their ongoing, overwhelming opposition to paying for other people’s abortions through taxpayer-funded Medicaid dollars,” she said in a statement.

More than 3 million people are enrolled in Michigan’s Medicaid programs, which provide comprehensive health care services for people on low incomes. 

The Democratic-led Legislature attempted in 2023 to repeal the ban, but a no vote from one Detroit Democrat House member foiled the effort.

The lawsuit alleges the ban also discriminates between childbirth and abortion and discriminates on the basis of sex.

The ban can delay vital health care, which can increase health risks and it increases costs to Medicaid-eligible people, who already face financial hardship.

Kitaba said the ban on Medicaid coverage for abortion creates a “two-tiered system” between those who can afford private health care coverage and those who cannot.

The abortion coverage ban falls most heavily on those who already face systemic barriers to accessing health care and have statistically worst health outcomes, especially Black women and other people of color. 

“When Medicaid ignores the will of the Michigan voter and arbitrarily restricts access to health care, Medicaid is disproportionately restricting access to care, specifically for people of color,” YWCA of Kalamazoo CEO Susan Rosas said. “… When the state limits what Medicaid can cover, the state is controlling what people of color can do with their own bodies. That is what systematic oppression looks like.”

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, Wayne County’s director of health, human and veterans services, agreed there is a discrimination system in the public policy whereby low-income people – who lack the financial means to pay out-of-pocket health care costs – are forced to do just that.

“In some effect, what this lawsuit is identifying is the inconsistency between enshrining a right to an abortion and then maintaining a policy on the books that in effect prevents the lowest income people from getting that abortion,” said the county health officer, who is involved the ACLU’s lawsuit.

“… On the one hand, the same idealogues who don’t want Medicaid dollars to pay for abortion services are uninterested in investing in the well-being of low-income families in our state,” El-Sayed added. “And that has been a real challenge all along. If you’re low income in this state, our public policy, in effect, punishes you twice.”