Michigan Pastors Keep Fighting Abortion Despite Radical Pro-Abortion Amendment

Pastors from across Michigan, across the country, and across the Body of Christ gathered in Bay Harbor, MI from November 4^th to 6^th at a training camp run by Liberty Pastors, to learn how to activate their congregations on key issues facing America and the Church today.

The training camp came just before the Michigan March for Life, which took place on Nov. 6^th in Lansing. Some of the gathered pastors from Michigan, of course, had groups from their churches going to the march.

I was privileged to address the pastors on abortion, and then to participate in the March for Life, for which I prepared a special message.

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A key dynamic was clear in both gatherings: despite the radical abortion-on-demand amendment that was imposed on the Michigan Constitution in 2022, pro-life people of Michigan and their pastors are not at all deterred or discouraged. They are pressing on, marching on, and determined to protect the unborn.

Both in my message for the march and my seminar to the pastors, I stressed a strategic point by which we can use the Constitutional amendment as a boomerang to stop abortions.

The Michigan constitution reads, “Every individual has a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which entails the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy” (Article 1, Section 28).

Now “all matters relating to pregnancy” includes birth. The fundamental right to make all decisions related to one’s pregnancy obviously is not only the “right” to end the pregnancy, but also the right to continue it.

Now as we know from studies like those of research expert Dr. David Reardon, and from the experience of all of us at Rachel’s Vineyard, Silent No More, and the many other ministries from healing after abortion as well as the experience of pregnancy centers and sidewalk counselors, the majority of people getting abortions do not want to do so.

It is a decision that flows not from “freedom of choice,” but from the feeling of having no freedom and no choice. It is a decision not that they make, but that someone else makes for them. They are not drawn to the door of the abortion mill by freedom, but by despair.

So if the Michigan Constitution guarantees the freedom to continue one’s pregnancy, then to coerce or pressure someone to abort is just as much a violation of her constitutional rights as to prevent the abortion.

For us, of course, there is no right to abortion. But here we are applying the abortion advocates’ own reasoning back on themselves, as a boomerang that can in fact stop most abortions.

Parents, husbands, boyfriends, other friends, doctors and abortionists who pressure someone to abort are violating her rights and should be both warned and held accountable.

Abortion mills should be required to screen for coercion.

And pro-life advocates, lawmakers, and pundits should point out that we are the ones truly advocating for freedom. The work of the pregnancy centers, in fact, should be encouraged as an essential aspect of preserving the freedom and fundamental right to continue one’s pregnancy despite obstacles and pressure.

The pastors and marchers to whom I spoke are ready to do this.

They are, furthermore, encouraged by the fact that the administration of Governor Gretchen Whitmer – an administration marked by the crushing both of life and of freedom – is soon coming to an end. The summer of 2026 will bring Michigan’s primary elections, and then in November, Michiganders will elect a new governor.

Now is the time for the churches and citizens of Michigan to get to know the candidates running in the primaries, and to register as many pro-life voters as possible.

I am always inspired when I go to Michigan, as I’ve been doing for 32 years. God bless that great state and the great pro-life people who live there!

LifeNews.com Note:  Frank Pavone is national director of Priests for Life and the national pastoral director of Rachel’s Vineyard Ministries and the Silent No More Awareness Campaign.