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| Photo Credit: AP. |
UTICA, Mich. (AP) — At a wine bar in suburban Detroit, about a dozen women strategized about how to preserve the right to abortion in their state.
This was not
a typical political event; there were no microphones, no literature to hand out
and few who would consider themselves activists. Among them was a mother of
four whose only previous political experience was pushing for later school
start times, a busy medical student and a retired teacher who, at 75, has never
felt comfortable knocking on doors or cold calling for a candidate.
“But I feel
strongly about abortion,” said Mary Ann Messano-Gadula. “Women should be able
to take care of their own bodies.”
Messano-Gadula,
who attended the late September “Vino the Vote” event with two friends,
described herself as the most shy of the bunch. But she said she planned to do
what organizers asked of attendees — post some Facebook messages and text some
friends to try to get them to support an amendment to the state constitution
guaranteeing abortion rights.
“I’m going to give it a shot,” she said.
Across
Michigan this year, similar, more intimate events are playing out alongside the
larger, traditional get-out-the-vote efforts, with major stakes for both
abortion rights and the candidates — mostly Democrats — who support them.
Michigan is
one of a handful of places where abortion rights will be on the ballot in
November, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June and left
the issue to states to decide. A ban approved in 1931 was suspended, then
struck down by state court rulings, but it is no guarantee that the procedure
won’t one day be outlawed.
That has
mobilized people in Michigan, as it has done in previous elections this cycle,
including in Kansas and New York. And it could have major implications beyond
the state.
Michigan is
one of the country’s most competitive presidential battlegrounds. It was also
among the states where former President Donald Trump and his allies tried to
overturn his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, falsely claiming the election was stolen.
Voters this fall also will decide statewide offices, including governor and
secretary of state, who will be in place for the 2024 election.
The race for
governor already has centered around abortion. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
filed a lawsuit prior to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling seeking to overturn the
1931 ban and said she “will continue using every tool in my toolbox to fight
like hell for women and health care providers.” Republican Tudor Dixon, who
opposes abortion except to save the life of the mother, has criticized Whitmer
for supporting abortion without limits, and suggested voters who support the
constitutional amendment could vote in favor of it and still support her
campaign for governor.
The issue
already has generated intense interest among voters and pushback from
Republicans and abortion opponents. Reproductive Freedom for All, the coalition
supporting the abortion-rights amendment, collected over 750,000 signatures on
petitions to put the question on the ballot — more than any other ballot
initiative in Michigan history.
Opponents
turned out in force for a meeting of the Board of State Canvassers, the
once-staid panel that decides what questions and candidates qualify for the
ballot. With anti-abortion protesters outside the building audible inside the
hearing room, the board split along party lines, with two Republicans voting no
and two Democrats voting yes. That meant the measure didn’t qualify for the
ballot, but Reproductive Freedom for All appealed to the Michigan Supreme
Court, where justices — a majority of whom were appointed by Democrats —
ordered it be put on.
Red, Wine
& Blue, the organization that held the wine bar gathering, is among the
members of the RFFA coalition in Michigan. Their strategy is to ask suburban
women — a key swing demographic in recent elections — to reach out to and talk
with friends, family members and other acquaintances and ask them to vote.
The model,
known as relational organizing, was used successfully by candidates such as
Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, who won a runoff election to help Democrats win
control of the U.S. Senate, and Pete Buttigieg, who went from little-known
mayor of South Bend, Indiana, to a top candidate for the party’s 2020
presidential nomination.
Greta
Carnes, who led the effort for Buttigieg’s campaign, said it is particularly
effective in turning out suburban women and on the often sensitive and personal
issue of abortion. The approach is also more efficient and effective, because
people can contact dozens of people in a matter of minutes via text, and a
voter receiving a message from someone they know is more likely to read and consider,
rather than delete it.
“Especially
on an issue like abortion, we can’t just have activists” knocking on doors,
Carnes said.
Lakshmi
Vadlamudi, a medical student from Franklin, Michigan, saw firsthand the power
of using her personal network when she helped gather signatures to put the
abortion question on the ballot this summer. She told a few friends she would
be in a parking lot one day collecting signatures, and word spread like
wildfire, she said.
Vadlamudi
started getting text messages from people wanting her to come to their house so
they could sign. Her Indian “aunties” — women with whom she is close but not
related — wanted to circulate their own petitions. Some had family members in
the medical profession and feared legal repercussions of performing an abortion
if the 1931 ban takes effect, while others worried for their daughters or
granddaughters. They ended up with 20 filled petitions.
“We got as
many as we could get our hands on,” Vadlamudi recalled. “People kept asking,”
she said, and interest in the issue hasn’t stopped.
Red, Wine
& Blue’s Michigan group is aiming to reach 157,000 voters in the state
through these “relational” contacts, according to Katie Paris, the
organization’s national director. The group’s leader in Michigan, Kelly
Dillaha, said they are recruiting 5,000 women to contact their networks and
report back to the group on their progress via an app.
Kathy Nitz,
a mother of four from Rochester Hills, started working with Red, Wine &
Blue after volunteering at her kids’ schools, leading the PTA and spearheading
an effort to start schools later in the morning. Those issues always felt like
“safe” topics, she said. Talking about abortion, on the other hand, was a bit
like saying the word “Voldemort” — the name that characters in the “Harry
Potter” books fear would bring great danger if uttered.
But Nitz has
grown more comfortable with the topic, even discussing the nuances with her
very Catholic and anti-abortion mother. And she believes these small
conversations among women like herself could add up.
“What I’ve
come to realize as a suburban woman and mother myself is that we’re
undervalued. We are underappreciated and under estimated, but we’re also
strong,” Nitz said. “We build communities, we make networks. That’s what we’ve
always done.”
Associated
Press reporters Aaron Kessler in Washington and Joey Cappelletti in Lansing,
Michigan, contributed to this report.
For AP’s
full coverage of abortion, go to https://apnews.com/hub/abortion
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