The Internet, Michigan House Legislature and My Adventures in Lansing

So, I've been out of commission for a while. I did not have internet for about a month and a half, and then I was still really busy moving in. That is why there have been a lack of posts.
And now, on to more important things. Yesterday, I (along with some friends) went to the Michigan House Committee on Health Policy hearing for bills 5711, 5712, and 5713. These bills limit what abortion providers can do and basically will make abortion inaccessible in Michigan. One bill requires that doctors have a million dollars in malpractice coverage and another limits a woman's choice to have an abortion at 20 weeks without exemptions for rape, incest, life of the mother or fetal anomaly. Can you imagine finding out that your child will only live for a few minutes and then being forced to give birth?
I then found out that one of my own representatives (who I voted for), Lesia Liss, has voted in support of all anti-choice legislation after running on a pro-choice platform and being supported financially by NOW, Planned Parenthood, and a host of other feminist and reproductive rights organizations. I will not be voting for her again.  All she said when I called her out on it was "I've learned so much in the past few days..." Which I assume to mean that Right to Life showed her pictures of miscarried fetuses and said that they were from abortions.
On the bright side, we did have some fantastic legislators standing up for women's rights. Kate Segal asked fantastic questions of all of the people who were speaking at the hearing (a lot of them ended up being of the "citation needed" variety), and Jimmy Womack uttered the best line I have ever heard when referring to a clause in one of the bills that would prohibit the dispense of the abortion pill via telemedicine, which anti-choicers were calling a webcam abortion: "What exactly is a webcam abortion? I mean, webcams cannot perform abortions..."

All in all, it was a very scary day for Michigan women. We can only hope that it will not pass the Republican controlled Senate.

Kari