Vice President Kamala Harris focused on reproductive rights at a campaign rally in Michigan on Wednesday.
Her comments come as President Joe Biden has fallen behind former President Donald Trump in the state, according to the latest polls. Speaking to hundreds of people, Harris stressed that abortion rights are at risk if Republicans win in November. She said Biden has vowed to veto any attempts to ban abortion nationwide.
“We believe in freedom. Freedom from the government telling us what to do in matters of the heart and in domestic affairs,” Harris said. “We believe in the right of people to make fundamental choices, like when and whether to start a family and how.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s vice presidential nominee, Senator JD Vance (Republican of Ohio), supports nationwide abortion bans and opposes exceptions for rape and incest. Democrats hope that distinction will help them win in the key swing state of Michigan this year. It was a crucial issue for voters in 2022, when Governor Gretchen Whitmer easily won re-election and both houses of the state legislature flipped to Democrats for the first time in decades.
In her speech, Harris condemned political violence following the recent attempted shooting at a political rally in Pennsylvania. She also praised the safety measures Michigan lawmakers have passed in recent years, including universal background checks and safe gun storage regulations. She added that politicians in Washington, DC, should support similar legislation.
“The solutions don’t really require a lot of creativity,” Harris claimed. “What they require are people in the U.S. Congress who have the courage to act and do what they know is right and not be afraid of special interests and powerful lobbyists.”
A Michigan Democrat in Congress, Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Grand Rapids), has called on Biden to drop out of the presidential race due to concerns about his age and cognitive abilities. Harris would likely be one of the best replacement candidates in the race against Trump.
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Abortion bans and restrictions limit women’s participation in the workforce, according to a new analysis that quantifies the negative impact on states’ economies.
South Dakota saw an average GDP loss of nearly 1% per year between 2021 and 2023 due to a decline in labor force participation among women who became pregnant and did not have access to abortion care, according to data from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. That adds up to nearly $641 million in economic losses for the state.
Jamila Taylor, president and CEO of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, said the 16 states with abortion bans or extreme restrictions, including South Dakota, cost the economy $68 billion annually.
“These restrictions and bans have clear implications not only for the health and well-being of people with the ability to become pregnant, but also for their productivity and economic standing,” Taylor said.
Taylor added that access to abortion not only eases the burden on family finances, but also enables women between the ages of 15 and 44 to become more involved in social life, such as in local communities or in politics.
Despite restrictions, abortion rates are rising. In the first full calendar year after the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, there was an 11% increase in abortions since 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute—or over a million abortions in the formal health care system in 2023.
If voters pass South Dakota’s Amendment G in November, it will enshrine abortion protections.
Hannah Haksgaard, a law professor at the University of South Dakota, said that even if the bill passes, women seeking abortions within their state would likely face a delay before services become available.
“There would probably still be state laws that would try to restrict abortion in some ways, and then the question would be whether those restrictions violate the new amendment,” she said.
Haksgaard added that this could cause providers to hesitate to provide abortion services in the state until the legal issues are resolved.
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A ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday will allow emergency abortions in Idaho – for now.
The justices said they rejected an appeal and restored a lower court ruling allowing hospitals to perform emergency abortions despite the state’s restrictive abortion laws.
Molly Meegan, general counsel for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said the organization was happy to see some temporary relief in this case, but added that it was far from a complete solution.
“The laws in Idaho and elsewhere are designed to have limits on treatment,” Meegan explained. “Those limits are not clearly defined and they do not take into account the discretion, judgment, expertise and training of the physician treating a particular patient.”
The protections for emergency abortions stem from a federal law known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. The law requires Medicare-funded hospitals to perform abortions in emergency situations. The three justices who dissented in Thursday’s case called the law’s ability to circumvent Idaho’s restrictive abortion laws “simply untenable.”
Dr. Stella Dentas, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said that Idaho’s laws are still unclear and that’s why many gynecologists are leaving the state. She noted that doctors are made more difficult to work in emergency situations when they face jail time because of restrictive laws like those in Idaho.
“It’s hard enough to make these critical decisions right now,” Dentas stressed. “If you’re stuck saying, ‘OK, I can go down path A, but I can’t go down path B,’ it’s very confusing for both the doctors and the patients and the shared decision-making that we’re making.”
Meegan added that lawmakers should not dictate what care is available to patients.
“These questions must be decided by science, by evidence and by individual cases,” Meegan asserted. “The idea that people without expertise, training or experience with emergencies can create black and white worlds is inherently dangerous.”
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A groundbreaking report by a team of researchers at Wayne State University has found that fathers not only pass on genetic predisposition to their children. They also pass on toxins to them.
The study found that adult male mice exposed to a mix of old and new PFAS chemicals altered their sperm and affected genes in the liver and fat tissue of their offspring. The substances have been widely used in consumer projects and industry since the 1940s.
Dr. Michael Petriello, a toxicologist and assistant professor of environmental health sciences and pharmacology at Wayne State, was involved in the study and said the results were surprising.
“The collaboration was so interesting that I didn’t know what to expect because I had never studied paternal exposures before,” Petriello noted. “Every time we expose these male mice, we see something – whether it’s in the males themselves or in their offspring.”
Studies show that exposure to PFAS also leads to less testosterone and more estradiol, a female sex hormone, in male rats. PFAS are a large group of synthetic chemicals that are resistant to oil, water and heat, earning them the nickname “forever chemicals.”
Dr. Richard Pilsner, a gynecologist and professor of human growth and development at Wayne State University and co-author of the report, said that while women often focus on their health before trying to conceive, planning is important for men too, and the three months before conception are the most critical.
“During this time, it is very good to try to avoid environmental influences and reduce exposure to various factors that could negatively affect the epigenetic patterns of sperm,” recommends Pilsner.
DruAnne Maxwell, a doctoral student at Wayne State and co-author of the report, said she was grateful to professors Pilsner and Petriello for what she called a revolutionary opportunity.
“Not much is known about PFAS, especially when it comes to reproductive science,” Maxwell stressed. “The male contribution is not emphasized, and that’s why we’re trying to turn the tide and show people that men do matter.”
The team said further research is needed to understand how PFAS exposure before conception affects future generations.
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