Rep. Laurie Pohutsky (D-Livonia) speaks ahead of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signing the last bill in the Reproductive Health Act in Lansing on Dec. 11, 2023. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)
After 23 people convicted of obstructing access to reproductive health care clinics received federal pardons from President Donald Trump in January, Michigan House Democrats are introducing legislation to create criminal penalties for such action in state law.
The anti-abortion protestors, several of which were from Michigan, were charged under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, a federal law that criminalizes obstruction or threats of force with the goal of interfering with access to reproductive health care services.
With Trump offering the pardons and his administration directing federal prosecutors in January to ease up on enforcement, directing authorities outside of “extraordinary circumstances” to address actions using local laws.
As the future of the FACE Act is unsure, Michigan state Rep. Laurie Pohutsky (D-Livonia) said she introduced a state version last week in order to preserve protections for patients seeking out reproductive health care and the employees who help offer such services.
House Bills 4133 and 4134, would ban individuals from restricting people’s physical movement or threatening bodily harm as they attempt to obtain or provide services from facilities offering reproductive health care.
“If you end up feeling too intimidated or physically cannot get into the building because someone is blocking you from doing so, that can be disastrous for the care you’re looking to seek,” Pohutsky said. “It also makes staff and providers feel unsafe… so then there’s an access issue on that front as well.”
There already is a clear need in Michigan to ensure the safe access to reproductive health care, Pohutsky said, noting anti-abortion protests in Sterling Heights in 2020 and Saginaw in 2021 where several individuals were charged for preventing patients from receiving health care.
Several individuals were found guilty in federal court in August of 2024, for illegally blockading the Sterling Heights reproductive health care facility, “without regard to the serious medical needs of the women they blocked from accessing reproductive health care,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a news release in 2024.
In one instance, the protestors physically obstructed a woman whose fetus experienced fatal abnormalities and the group’s actions “posed a grave and real threat to her health and fertility” Clarke said.
Two of the individuals convicted in the Sterling Heights incident were also convicted in the Saginaw incident where in 2021 one of them sat in front the entrance to the clinic with a doorstop wedged under the door so it couldn’t be opened from the inside, while the other used a bicycle lock to chain themselves in front of another door.
Under the proposed legislation criminal penalties range from a six month misdemeanor to life in prison, should the obstruction or interference result in a death.
The bills were referred to the House’s Government Operations Committee where bills typically go to die, but Pohutsky said the legislation would cover so-called “pregnancy crisis centers” which operate to offer alternatives to abortion services, often run by pro-life groups, so she’s hopeful the legislation could be considered by the House’s Republican majority.
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