Five legislative issues Catholics in Michigan should know about in 2024
The new year is here, and that means the Michigan Legislature is resuming session after a busy year of lawmaking in 2023. The following are five important issues the Michigan Catholic Conference will be watching this year.
Assisted suicide
Michigan has long prohibited physician-assisted suicide to protect the sick and elderly from being legally provided drugs to end their lives. Just before lawmakers adjourned in 2023, however, bills were introduced in the Michigan Senate to end these protections.
The MCC opposes the legislation because it offers death rather than hope, love, and compassion, along with medically advanced palliative care for those who are in pain, sick, suffering or may have a terminal condition.
The proposed legislation would remove the state’s statutory protection against assisted suicide, which was affirmed by 71% of Michigan voters in a statewide vote in 1998. The bills have not had a Senate committee hearing yet.
Commercial surrogacy
Last fall, the House approved legislation to allow compensated surrogacy contracts in Michigan, which would commercialize a practice that currently tends to take place between close friends or family.
The MCC’s perspective toward the package begins with the rights of the child, as every child possesses God-given dignity regardless of his or her origin. The MCC’s concerns with surrogacy include the fact that it intentionally displaces the connection between the child and his or her birth mother. The legislation also poses an increased risk of exploitation of surrogate mothers that would likely come with a new surrogacy industry in Michigan should the bills pass.
As Pope Francis very recently said, surrogate motherhood “represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs,” adding that “a child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract.”
The MCC opposes the surrogacy legislation while still acknowledging the suffering of husbands and wives who experience infertility and suggests promoting adoption as an alternative path to parenthood. The package awaits Senate committee consideration.
