Michigan House Republicans consider bills to re-establish abortion reporting requirements

The House Health Policy Committee heard testimony on Wednesday on a package of bills that seeks to introduce reporting requirements for abortions that providers would have to meet. 

“These bills would bring Michigan in line with most of the other states and with the data that is currently being collected federally,” said Rep. Jennifer Wortz (R-Quincy), the sponsor of one of the bills in the package. “This is a no nonsense step to protect women.”

The bills would require reporting of 19 different pieces of information for each abortion. Those include demographic information, like age and marital status, as well as information about the abortion itself, including the method of abortion, method of payment, and “whether the fetus showed evidence of life” when the abortion took place. It further requires reporting of why the abortion was sought out, as well as any complications that occurred due to the abortion. 

“In this state, we have a lot of abortions that are occurring, and this legislation is designed to give us data around these procedures, to inform us to support women in these challenging times, to try to come up with policy to decrease the amount of abortions that are happening in this state,” said Rep. Brad Paquette (R-Niles), whose bill establishes the reporting requirements themselves. 

The package also includes legislation to criminalize the disclosure of the personal information of those receiving abortions, introduced by Rep. Rachelle Smit (R-Shelbyville). Though the information collected under these bills would not include personally identifiable information, this would prevent any of that information being disclosed. 

“It’s hard to make an informed decision too, if, as a woman,” Smit said, “you don’t have any of these measures to look at.” 

Rep. Mark Tisdel (R-Rochester Hills) seemed to express some trepidation, while asking questions of presenters from Right to Life of Michigan and other anti-abortion groups, about the amount of information that would be collected under this bill, questioning how information on marital status would be relevant to understanding risks and complications. 

“I understand the desire here, and I understand the need for informed consumers,” Tisdel said. “I don’t want to be creating policy simply because we don’t like something.”

Rebecca Mastee, a policy advocate for the Michigan Catholic Conference, responded that the bill only sought to return reporting requirements to what they were prior to changes to law that went into effect after the 2022 ballot measure that enshrined abortion rights into the Michigan Constitution. 

Genevieve Marnon, legislative director for Right to Life of Michigan, added that the details could be used to drive public policy if certain demographic groups were overrepresented in abortion statistics. 

“It restores common sense laws, which Michigan had for over 40 years and which bring needed transparency to the abortion industry,” Marnon said. 

However, Dr. Katherine Starr, the chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood of Michigan, stated in submitted written testimony in opposition to the bills, that together, they sought to “single out abortion care from all other kinds of health care, impose medically unnecessary administrative burdens, and force providers to interrogate patients so they can deliver deeply personal and highly sensitive patient information to the state.”

Michigan had previously published reports annually with detailed statistics on abortions, including demographic data and information on complications, but those ceased after a 2023 law change. 

45 states, as well as the District of Columbia, have some kind of reporting requirement, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights research group. The requirements in these bills would be among the most detailed, with just seven states requiring data on method of payment and 10 states requiring information on the viability of the fetus. 

“Any vote against these bills is a vote against women’s safety,” said Ariane Fisher, the director of community outreach for a Catholic pregnancy resource center in Southfield, Mich.  

In contrast, Starr noted that many patients are already fearful about protecting their privacy, which could impact their care.

“Being asked to disclose where they live, their age, their marital status, and why they are seeking care, knowing that this information will be shared with the state, could further deter people from seeking care and insert more fear into what may already be a very difficult situation,” Starr said.