(LANSING, Mich.) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is filing a lawsuit Thursday in an effort to protect abortion rights in the state.

“No matter what happens to Roe, I am going to fight like hell and use all the tools I have as governor to ensure reproductive freedom is a right for all women in Michigan,” she said in a statement. “If the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to protect the constitutional right to an abortion, the Michigan Supreme Court should step in. We must trust women — our family, neighbors, and friends — to make decisions that are best for them about their bodies and lives.”

Michigan is one of about 20 states where abortion could be immediately banned if Roe v. Wade were overturned because of either laws that predate Roe but were never removed from the books, so-called “trigger” laws that would go into effect in the event of the precedent being overturned, state constitutional amendments, or six- or eight-week bans that are not currently in effect but would ban nearly all abortions, according to a 2021 report by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.

In Michigan’s case, abortion would be banned because of a 1931 state statute that criminalizes abortion, including in cases of rape or incest. The only exception would be in case of threat to the pregnant person’s life.

That statute has not been enforced since Roe made abortion a national right, but it could go back into effect if Roe were overturned. Whitmer filed the lawsuit, which names the elected prosecutors of 13 counties that have abortion clinics as defendants, to undo the statute.

As governor, she is utilizing the rarely used executive message power, which includes the governor’s right under the state constitution to “initiate court proceedings in the name of the state to enforce compliance with any constitutional or legislative mandate,” to push the case forward. Effectively, Whitmer is asking the Michigan Supreme Court to pick up the case directly, bypassing the time it would take in trial and appeals courts.

“This is no longer theoretical: it is reality,” Whitmer said in her statement about the possibility of Roe being overturned. “That’s why I am filing a lawsuit and using my executive authority to urge the Michigan Supreme Court to immediately resolve whether Michigan’s state constitution protects the right to abortion.”

She had previously supported an effort from the state Legislature to repeal the statute, however that effort has not moved the needle.

Whitmer’s move to protect abortion rights in this sped-up manner comes as Roe v. Wade faces its biggest challenge in its 49 years with the U.S. Supreme Court expected to hand down a decision in a case out of Mississippi early this summer.

That case revolves around a ban on abortion after 15 weeks of a pregnancy. Previous Supreme Court precedent had stipulated abortion was legal up to the point of viability, which typically happens around 24 to 28 weeks.

During oral arguments in December, the conservative justices openly raised the prospect of overturning decades of legal precedent, sending up flares around the nation that the landscape for legal abortion could be radically changed.

If abortion were made illegal in Michigan, the average Michigander’s driving distance to the nearest abortion clinic would expand from 11 miles to 261 miles, according to the Guttmacher Institute, as patients would have to travel out of state to seek an abortion.

With this, Michigan joins several states that have in recent months bulked up protections for abortion rights, apparently in response to the possibility of Roe being overturned.

“However we personally feel about abortion, a woman’s health, not politics, should drive important medical decisions,” Whitmer said in her statement. “A woman must be able to make her own medical decisions with the advice of a healthcare professional she trusts – politicians shouldn’t make that decision for her.”

This move also comes as the jury deliberates in a trial over an alleged 2020 plot to kidnap and kill Whitmer. The four men accused could face life in prison if found guilty.

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(FRANKFORT, Ky.) — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed a bill Wednesday that would ban transgender women and girls from playing on school sports teams that correspond with their gender identity from grades six and up into college.

Under the proposed bill, students would play on teams based on their sex assigned at birth.

Beshear, who is a Democrat, joins two Republican governors who vetoed similar bills in Utah and Indiana. In his veto letter, he said he shares their concerns that the bills could provoke lawsuits against the state and cause harm against transgender people.

“Transgender children deserve public officials’ efforts to demonstrate that they are valued members of our communities through compassion, kindness and empathy, even if not understanding,” the governor stated.

Beshear also pointed to the Kentucky High School Athletic Association’s transgender participation policy, which requires that trans student-athletes undergo hormone therapy after puberty to minimize potential gender-related advantages.

The KHSAA policy states that the organization “recognizes and promotes the ability of transgender student-athletes to participate in the privilege of interscholastic sports and sport-activities free from unlawful discrimination based on sexual orientation.”

However, Senate Bill 83 — the Fairness in Womens’ Sports Act — passed Kentucky’s legislature on March 24 with a GOP majority that could override Beshear’s decision.

Those in support of these policies, like bill sponsor Sen. Robby Mills, have said that they believe transgender women have a biological advantage against cisgender women.

“It would be crushing for a young lady to train her whole career to have it end up competing against a biological male in the state tournament or state finals,” Mills said during Senate debate on the bill.

There has been “no direct or consistent research” that shows that trans people have an advantage over cisgender peers in athletics, according to a Sports Medicine journal review of several research studies on potential advantages.

LGBTQ advocates applauded Beshear’s decision, saying that legislators behind the bill are bullying transgender youth.

“From the start, this bill has been more about fear than fairness,” said Chris Hartman, the executive director of Kentucky LGBTQ+ advocacy group the Fairness Campaign.

He continued: “In Kentucky’s entire school system, there is only one openly transgender girl we know playing on a school sports team. That student started her school’s field hockey team, recruited all of the other team members, and just wants the opportunity to play with her friends her eighth-grade year.”

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