Rogers Cashes Checks From Anti-Abortion Extremists in Final Days of Senate Campaign
"Michigan voters fought hard to protect reproductive freedom, and these extremist groups want a senator who will help them undermine it in Washington."
Michigan voters were clear in 2022 when they voted by a 13-point margin to codify the right to abortion care in the state constitution, and the state's Republican US Senate candidate, former Rep. Mike Rogers, claimed two years ago that he had no interest in "going back to Washington, DC to undo what the people of Michigan decided to do.”
But a recent campaign contribution from the National Pro-Life Alliance political action committee (PAC) left reproductive rights advocates warning that Rogers has shown throughout his political career that he will fight to stop Michiganders from accessing abortion care—and that extremist groups are counting on him to win the Senate race to ensure abortion is banned nationwide.
Recent filings from the Federal Election Commission show that on October 23, just before Michigan residents began voting early ahead of the November 3 midterms, the National Pro-Life Alliance PAC donated $5,000 to the Rogers for Senate campaign.
The group has lobbied for the passage of the Life at Conception Act, which would ban all abortions with no exceptions for rape, incest, or health risks for the pregnant patient, and previously donated $1,700 to Rogers between 2000-10.
In 2010, when the then-congressman received $1,000 from the group, the National Pro-Life Alliance stipulated that candidates they supported must support the Life at Conception Act.
Shanay Watson-Whittaker, director of Michigan campaigns at Reproductive Freedom for All, told Common Dreams on Tuesday that the "last-minute donation shows how desperate anti-abortion groups are to buy this election—and they’re counting on Mike Rogers to deliver for them."
"His record gives them every reason to believe he will," she added.
"We need someone who will fight for our rights, and Rogers has spent his entire career showing us he won’t.”
Despite Rogers' earlier claims that should he win the Senate seat, he would respect Michiganders' support for the right to abortion care, he spent his 14 years in office backing a constitutional amendment to enshrine "personhood" in the US Constitution, aiming to ban all abortions from the moment of conception, and supporting a national 20-week ban—"still very much a national ban that could carry disparate harm for people experiencing medical emergencies and fetal conditions," wrote Kylie Cheung at Jezebel in 2024.
"I oppose abortion at any time except to save the live [sic] of the mother," Rogers wrote in a candidate questionnaire distributed by the Michigan Catholic Conference, affirming that he supported the Human Life Amendment. He added that he opposed the use of "taxpayer funds for any abortions.”
Rogers was also a sponsor of four fetal "personhood" bills that aimed to ban nearly all abortions nationwide.
Watson-Whittaker urged Michigan voters to keep Rogers' donation from the National Pro-Life Alliance and his record in mind as they go to the polls in the coming week.
"Michigan voters fought hard to protect reproductive freedom, and these extremist groups want a senator who will help them undermine it in Washington," said Watson-Whittaker. "We need someone who will fight for our rights, and Rogers has spent his entire career showing us he won’t.”
