Hours after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the first abortion-related case since its 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan was processing the weight of the day. 

“It’s heartbreaking that we have got to keep having these conversations,” she told The 19th of the fact that once again, it’s time for public officials like her to weigh in on yet another potential threat to Americans’ reproductive autonomy. 

Though the justices expressed skepticism that a coalition of anti-abortion doctors had the right to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) 2016 and 2021 decisions to expand access to mifepristone, a drug used for medication abortion, Whitmer stressed that the case even making it to the Supreme Court tells an important story about the current security of reproductive rights in the United States — or lack thereof. It’s why this case matters in her home state, too. Should the Supreme Court rule to roll back the previous FDA decisions, it would eliminate the ability for mifepristone to be delivered by mail, potentially restricting access to patients even in a place like Michigan, where abortion rights are part of the state constitution.

Whitmer, also a co-chair of President Biden’s re-election campaign, said she is acutely aware of the role that her state plays in determining these larger outcomes — and why there is so much attention on what has happened, and continues to happen, in Michigan, especially when it comes to reproductive freedom. 

“Michigan really is like a microcosm of the country. We’re one of the most diverse swing states in the nation. People here … expect to have the full freedoms that we’ve always enjoyed,” Whitmer said. “This is one really, really tremendously high-stakes election and all the attention is going to be on this state and a few others, because people want to be able to know that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can get ahead in this country — and that no one is gonna stand between you and the most personal, important decisions in your life.”

Over her five years in office, Whitmer has been a vocal proponent of reproductive rights and has, with alternating cooperation and opposition from legislative leaders in the deeply purple state, pushed to protect them in Michigan. 

“We’ve been able to codify abortion in our constitution in states like Michigan, but what I’m constantly seeing and hearing is that we’re all exhausted,” she said. Michigan codified abortion rights through a ballot initiative, which sent a message about their popularity in a critically important swing state, but also underscored the importance that Michigan plays in abortion access throughout the Midwest. The state is a key site of abortion services for patients in Ohio, Indiana, Missouri and Wisconsin, where abortion is banned in most or all cases following the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe and sent the question of abortion rights back to the states. 

But attacks on abortion, and reproductive health care more broadly, remain. In November 2023, Michigan Right to Life and a number of state Republican lawmakers filed a federal lawsuit seeking to invalidate and block the state constitutional protection that voters had approved. The lawsuit names Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson as defendants. In January, Nessel filed a motion for the lawsuit to be dismissed, claiming the plaintiffs “lack standing,” or have no personal damages that would substantiate a lawsuit. 

What has played out since the abortion ballot measure is a sign, Whitmer said, that “we’ve got to gird ourselves for battle.” The arguments before the Supreme Court on whether the plaintiffs can override an FDA drug approval are further evidence of that — and a clear indicator that more attacks are coming, Whitmer said. She suggested that people look no further than what has recently happened in Alabama, where the state Supreme Court recently ruled that frozen embryos outside of the womb are children with full rights as such. 

“When the Alabama courts rendered their ruling on IVF it shocked a lot of people — it shocked me.” The court’s expanded definition of personhood to cover embryos, she said, “would have not only a chilling effect on IVF, but on embryonic stem cell research on the race for cures for Alzheimer’s and juvenile diabetes and the cutting-edge science that saves lives.” She added that none of these things are happening in a vacuum — not what is happening in Alabama, not what’s happening in Michigan, not what’s happening before the Supreme Court. “This all could now fall under the weight of one judge in one state that is putting their own opinion in front of what the law is, or what the FDA says, or what the people of this country have voted and expressed their opinion on.”

In Michigan, officials are looking for other ways to protect decisions around reproductive care.  This month, the legislature passed a package of bills aimed at decriminalizing surrogacy contracts and shoring up protections for reproductive health care holistically, including new protections for children born through surrogacy and assisted reproductive technologies like IVF and the parents who build families this way.  

Given the importance of the courts at all levels of government on reproductive rights, Whitmer said that it is critical that Americans make the connections between these diverse attacks happening in different states in different ways, and understand the way that the upcoming presidential election plays into the landscape. 

“On this issue, you couldn’t see a more stark difference. We wouldn’t be here worrying about IVF, worrying about the right to distribute mifepristone, worrying about the right to health care and abortion for women if it weren’t for the three justices that Donald Trump put on the court.”

Though Whitmer also emphasized how voters in states as diverse as Michigan, Ohio, Kansas, and Kentucky have all recently taken to the ballot box to help protect abortion rights, these state-level actions also speak to the need for federal protections. “Every state is different. So if you live in Ohio, you have different abilities to go to the ballot than if you live in Indiana or Michigan, and the same is true in states all across this country. Right now, we have a patchwork of laws, so that some women have no rights when it comes to the ability to access health care and make their own decisions, and in other states we do.” 

This dynamic is why Whitmer stressed the importance of the upcoming presidential election — and the potential for a president to help implement federal legislation that would erase some of these disparities. 

“I’m hopeful that eventually we will have a national codification of abortion rights and that every woman and family and medical provider in this country has clarity that we are all endowed with the same freedoms to make our own decisions about our bodies and our future. That is my hope,” she said. “It’s gonna take a while to get there, which is why I’m so sober about the fact that I’m going to continue to fight for this.”