Choice for me, but not for thee.
Republican Michigan state judge Brian Zahra’s ex-wife says he drove her to get an abortion years ago, and she’s angry that he voted to block a measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution in September.
Zahra is up for re-election to the state’s Supreme Court.
Zahra’s ex-wife, Alyssa Jones, told NBC News in an interview, “I’m grateful I had a choice, and I think he’s grateful he had a choice.”
Jones said she was incensed by what she views as hypocrisy by Zahra, since she believes the termination of her pregnancy ultimately helped him build a successful law career, and that his vote was an attempt to deny others a similar choice.
Zahra voted to block an abortion measure called Proposal 3, citing “insufficient spacing” on the petition.
The supporters of the ballot worked really hard after the overturn of Roe to get sufficient signatures to warrant certification. They ended up getting 735K signatures. This achievement wasn’t disputed.
The issue was: “whether there is sufficient space between certain words of the text of the proposed amendment.”
This is called concern trolling and obstruction by any means possible, and it was brought to Michigan women by a man who took his ex-wife to get an abortion and would most likely not be sitting on that state Supreme Court without the choice of her getting an abortion.
Michigan Bridge reported the stakes, “Legal access to abortion in Michigan is tenuous, maintained only by court orders temporarily suspending enforcement of a 1931 ban set to take effect when the high court overturned nearly 50 years of protections this summer.”
Proposal 3 will be on the November 8th ballot, after many fights over stupid objections by Republicans, who apparently don’t trust the voters to have a say in their own Constitution and rights. It won’t surprise Michigan voters that Zahra was initially appointed by Governor Rick Snyder, of the Flint water scandal.
This is yet another incidence of the very disturbing trend of the Republican Party disenfranchising voters, disregarding the Will of the Voters, which has resulted in their entire party denying the results of the most secure election in our history.
Brian Zahra tried to use a font formatting issue to deny women and other couples the right to an abortion, a right he took full advantage of when he needed it.
This is also part of the conservative trend of raising the ladder after themselves, as we see with Clarence Thomas trying to get rid of affirmative action after he took advantage of it in order to reach the heights he has reached.
Zahra doesn’t seem that far off from Republicans like Pennsylvania Senatorial candidate Mehmet Oz (R-NJ, running in PA) and US House candidate Robert Burns (R-NH), who have suggested that local politicians should be involved in determining if a woman should be able to get an abortion after being raped or having cancer, effectively suggesting the very “death panels” they lied about in their efforts to kill Obamacare.
There’s also now infamous Georgia Republican Senatorial candidate Herschel Walker, who denied pushing for an abortion and denied even knowing the woman until the woman pointed out that they shared a child, the second pregnancy he tried to get her to abort. A second woman came forward to say that Walker also pressured her to get an abortion, telling ABC News that he is not fit for office and that “honesty matters.”
“[Walker] was very clear that he did not want me to have the child. And he said that because of his wife’s family and powerful people around him that I would not be safe and that the child would not be safe,” the woman said.
Herschel Walker also says he is anti-abortion. Apparently he means for anyone but himself, which is also another way of saying these men all feel entitled to choice.
Sensing a theme here? GOP: Abortion for me, but not for thee.
All of the women coming forward to tell their stories in these fraught political times are demonstrating commendable courage, patriotism and compassion for others. It’s not easy being a target of hate for telling the truth, but they are doing it because the truth tells an important part of the abortion story: Men play a big role in wanting access to choice.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
