Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a $70 billion state budget bill Sept. 29, yet line-item vetoed more than $16 million in funding for abortion alternatives and pro-life initiatives. 

According to Americans United for Life (AUL), the vetoed provisions included: $10 million toward promoting adoption; $3 million for funding nonprofits that promote alternatives to abortion; $1.5 million for pregnancy resource centers; $1 million for pregnant and parenting services at colleges and universities; $700,000 for pregnancy and parenting support services programs; and $50,000 for the state health department to inform the public that it does not use taxpayer dollars to fund abortion.

A spokesperson for Whitmer, a Democrat, said that she vetoed specific items because they did not “fully support reproductive health and choice.”

But pro-life advocates believe Whitmer is helping to line the pockets of Planned Parenthood.

Whitmer’s veto “ensures that Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses in the state will be protected from the competition that adoption services and other alternatives would provide,” AUL pointed out.

Right to Life Michigan President Barbara Listing expressed her disappointment in Whitmer’s decision to not invest in these life-affirming programs.

“Gov. Whitmer has supported pregnancy help programs for students as a state representative,” she said in a press release, “but now, as governor, rejects these efforts to aid mothers in carrying their children to term and getting the help that they deserve.

“ … The gap between the number of adoptions and abortions is already large, and with the actions of Gov. Whitmer, that gap will continue to grow.

“This is just one more in the long series of actions by Gov. Whitmer that shows her extreme pro-abortion stance. We are not surprised by her actions to deprive women of pregnancy help. Gov. Whitmer’s approach to dealing with women facing crisis pregnancies is abortion first, actual help second.

“Pro-life Michiganders strive to help mothers in need with more than 150 pregnancy help centers and adoption agencies around the state, and these funds would have been crucial to continuing to help children and women.”

In 2020, nearly 30,000 abortions were performed in Michigan, an 8.5% increase over 2019 and the highest amount since 1996, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

Photo: Reuters/Tom Brenner/Alamy Stock Photo