Women’s Declaration International (WDI) is a global, nonpartisan group of volunteer women dedicated to protecting women’s sex-based rights; WDI USA is its U.S. chapter. The Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights (the Declaration) was created by the founders of WDI to lobby nations to maintain language protecting women and girls on the basis of sex rather than “gender” or “gender identity.” Based on well established principles of international law, the Declaration re-affirms women and girls’ sex-based rights and challenges the discrimination we experience from the replacement of the category of sex with that of “gender identity.” It has over 33,000 signatures globally, from 158 countries.
Michigan Proposal 22-3, would amend Michigan’s State Constitution to establish a “new individual right to reproductive freedom.”
Michigan voters will see the following text on their ballot on November 2, 2022:
This proposed constitutional amendment would:
● “Establish new individual right to reproductive freedom, including right to make and carry out all decisions about pregnancy, such as prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, sterilization, abortion, miscarriage management, and infertility;
● “Allow state to regulate abortion after fetal viability, but not prohibit if medically needed to protect a patient’s life or physical or mental health;
● “Forbid state discrimination in enforcement of this right; prohibit prosecution of an individual, or a person helping a pregnant individual, for exercising rights established by this amendment;
● “Invalidate state laws conflicting with this amendment.”
WDI USA supports the right of every girl and woman to unconditional access to abortion on demand without apology, in accordance with Article 3 of the Declaration. However, we are concerned that this proposal, if passed, will have consequences to minor children that most voters would not understand, let alone favor.
Minor children do not have the same capacity as adults to comprehend long-term consequences and should not be allowed to make independent decisions that have drastic and permanent effects on their health and the course of their lives. The text of this proposal includes “sterilization” with no minimum age requirement, removing the need for parental consent to (or even knowledge of) puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, castration, and hysterectomy in children under 18 years of age in service to the industry of transgenderism.
In other words, this proposal would create a state constitutional right to sterilization for minors with no need for parental notification and no ability for the state legislature to curb the practice.
Many Michigan voters may not be aware that minor children are undergoing these types of medical interventions, much less that a growing number of teenagers and young adults are regretting “treatments” and procedures designed to disguise their sex. Calling themselves “detransitioners,” they report dismay, anger, and frustration at the inability to reverse the effects of hormones and surgeries on their bodies. Young women are forced to live permanently with discarded healthy breasts, deepened voices, facial hair, and male pattern baldness.
Castrations, double mastectomies and penile inversions cannot be undone. Dr. Lisa Littman
completed a study in 2021 showing that “the prevalence of detransition may be underestimated.” At last count, a support group on Reddit specifically for “detransitioners” has over 40,000 members.
Most children outgrow any doubts about their sex if permitted to experience puberty normally, but as many as 98% of children taking puberty blockers will likely go on to take cross sex hormones, which carry a high risk of infertility. There is an obscene amount of money to be made by unethical corporations and practitioners from hormones and surgeries designed to disguise biological sex. Lupron costs over $4,000 per month. Children as young as age 8 may be prescribed this or other puberty blocking drugs until they are 16. They should not be permitted to sacrifice their fertility on the altar of medical and pharmaceutical profit.
As written, Michigan Proposal 22-3 would create a state constitutional right to sterilization for a child, without parental permission or input. It uses abortion rights, which we support unconditionally, as a vehicle for sterilization rights. Michigan residents should vote no on this proposal and find an unencumbered way to ensure reproductive freedom for women and girls.
thank you for this post. Vermont has a similar article on the ballot for a constitutional amendment. It has been hard to sort out the dialogue about this. Democrats are saying there is a misinformation campaign to stop the initiative. Groups who are against the measure are all anti-abortion. I am glad to have found WTI‘s analysis, because I, too, was uncomfortable with the vague language, but I just didn’t know if it was hyperbole to say the amendment would make it easier for minors to access “gender affirming care” without parental consent. Thank you for providing this as I am more informed about my vote.