New Michigan law uses taxpayer dollars to fund abortions

Governor Gretchen Whitmer on Monday signed a bill repealing a law that allowed insurance providers, including the government-run Medicaid program, to opt out of covering abortions. The measure is the final part of the state’s so-called Reproductive Health Act, which also rolled back a 1931 law that would have criminalized medical professionals who prescribed abortion drugs. Michigan voters last year approved an amendment to the state constitution to remove protections for unborn babies.

Nationally, how else have abortion providers received taxpayer money? From 2019-2021, abortion advocacy groups received $1.89 billion in federal funding, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday. Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey commissioned the report in 2022. During its first year, the Biden administration more than quadrupled federal obligations to Planned Parenthood, according to the report. The abortion provider also received more than $90 million in forgiven Paycheck Protection Program loans during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Dig deeper: Read Leah Savas’s report in Vitals about how state supreme courts are taking up abortion cases.