Michelle Obama makes women's health care attractive to men during rally in Michigan

Kalamazoo – Former first lady Michelle Obama urged men not to sit out the election or hold a “protest vote” against Vice President Kamala Harris at the polls, warning them that the possibility of further restrictions on reproductive health would have consequences for them as well as for their wives and daughters.

Obama spent much of her roughly 40-minute speech at the Wings Event Center in Kalamazoo, describing the effect of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in states with strict abortion regulations and warning of further reproductive disruption rights within a second. Trump’s presidency.

She weighed her message against the possibility that male voters could choose former President Donald Trump, a third-party candidate, or not vote at all in the presidential race, urging them not to “be indifferent.” in the face of our plight.”

“Your anger does not exist in a vacuum,” Obama said. “If we don’t get this election done right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women will become collateral damage to your anger.”

Before arriving at the Kalamazoo meeting, Harris stopped at a doctor’s office in nearby Portage to meet with health care providers and medical students to discuss threats to reproductive rights.

Michigan voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2022 that enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution and largely removed abortion decision-making from the hands of state lawmakers. But Democrats argued during the campaign that a federal ban would override these constitutional provisions.

The former first lady gave her first campaign speech this fall, warning men about the implications of a nation with a patchwork of state laws governing abortion and pregnancies, and the complications it could cause for the women in their lives.

“Your niece could be the one who has a miscarriage in her bathtub after the hospital turns her away,” Obama said. ‘And this won’t just affect women. It will affect you and your sons.’

For young couples expecting a child, numerous unforeseen complications can arise during pregnancy, Obama said, underscoring the need for a woman and her doctor to be able to make a decision about whether to terminate a pregnancy.

“If your wife is shivering and bleeding on the operating table during a routine delivery that went badly, her (blood) pressure is dropping because she is losing more and more blood or if an unforeseen infection is spreading and her doctor is unsure whether they can take action “You will be the one praying that it is not too late,” Obama said.

“You’ll be the one begging someone, anyone, to do something,” she added.

Obama’s comments, which preceded a speech by Harris, were her first since the Democratic National Convention in August and comes just days after her husband, former President Barack Obama, campaigned for Harris in Detroit.

She addressed a packed crowd Saturday evening at the Wings Event Center, an ice arena that normally hosts the K-Wings minor league hockey team. The arena seats between 5,000 and 6,000 people; an overflow track was also used for a few hundred other supporters who could not fit into the arena.

Obama and Harris’ comments come on the first of nine days of early voting in Michigan. They were preceded by Democratic Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist and U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, who encouraged early voting at the rally in southwest Michigan.

“Y’all, Michigan is going to be the state that decides this election,” Gilchrist told the crowd.

The visit comes a week and a half before Election Day amid a flurry of candidate visits to the swing state. Harris’ Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, held a rally in Novi earlier Saturday afternoon, hours after rallying supporters late Friday night in Traverse City.

More: While Michigan Democrats are pushing for abortion rights, the Republican Party is shifting its position to diffuse attacks

The Trump campaign panned Harris and Obama’s visit.

“It doesn’t matter who Kamala Harris brings to her rallies to distract from the fact that you are at a Kamala Harris rally,” Victoria LaCivita, spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign in Michigan, said in a statement. “The message is still the same. A vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for higher inflation, open borders, chaos and bloodshed on the world stage, and a fading American Dream.”

A few hours before Harris’ arrival, the Wings Event Center arena, which has a capacity of between 5,000 and 6,000, was nearly full. Additional attendees were directed to overflow areas.

Sheri Millard of Portage secured a front row seat for the event on Saturday. She said she supported the vice president out of concern for the direction of the country and democracy, repeating a phrase Harris often spoke at her rallies: “We can’t go back.”

“I just think far too many people don’t believe it; they think he’s just blowing smoke,” Millard said.

“I fear that if he is re-elected, this country will never be the same again. He’s done enough damage in four years.’

More: Fact-checking some of the most misleading claims about TV election ads in Michigan

Brooklyn Pitchford cast her first vote for president via absentee ballot last week. On Saturday, the 21-year-old Kalamazoo resident eagerly awaited the arrival of the vice president and former first lady in her hometown.

Pitchford said she voted for Harris because she believes the California Democrat will work to protect her rights, including her reproductive rights.

“She understands that it is a woman’s choice and that no man should have any dictation over the right to do whatever she wants with her body,” Pitchford said of abortion.

Harris is expected to be back in Michigan on Monday, where he will make stops at three different locations. including Ann Arbor. Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance will campaign in Saginaw Township on Tuesday, the Trump campaign said Saturday.

Both campaigns are using campaign rallies this weekend to encourage voters to cast ballots early or return absentee ballots to their local clerks. As of Friday, about 1.46 million absentee ballots had been returned to clerks, a rate of 63% of the 2.3 million absentee ballots sent to Michigan voters, the secretary of state’s office said.

“We can’t leave anything on the field. The future of this country is in our hands as the entire country looks to Michigan,” said Peters, D-Bloomfield Township.

More: Michigan election sites are seeing high early voting traffic on the first day statewide

Kalamazoo County has turned blue in the last two presidential elections.

In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton defeated Trump in Kalamazoo County by about 13 percentage points, 53%-40%. In 2020, President Joe Biden defeated Trump in the county by 18 percentage points, 58%-40%.

Biden went on to win Michigan by about 154,000 votes, or almost 3 percentage points.

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