Mike Rogers is desperate. Hoping Michiganders forget about his 14 years in Congress, and the decades he spent railing against reproductive rights and lobbying for a nationwide abortion ban, last week, the Republican Senate candidate released a new 15-second digital campaign ad. Sitting comfortably in a casual setting alongside his wife, Kristi, who gently holds his hand, with soft piano music playing, Rogers looks straight into the camera … and tells the Big Lie.
"I know that a decision about a pregnancy is one of the most difficult and personal decisions a woman will make. Michigan voters have already decided the issue, and I respect that decision. In the Senate, I won't do anything to change it."
Don’t believe it. Since the launch of his campaign a year ago, Rogers has actually repeated this lie several times, apparently taking a page from the Trump playbook: Tell a lie often enough and people will start to believe it.
Rogers often ends these statements with another whopper, “I will respect the will of the voters, as I have always done.”
In fact, during his tenure in Congress from 2001 to 2015 (which is when he retired and moved to Florida, only returning to Michigan to run for Senate in 2023), Rogers routinely opposed reproductive rights 100% of the time, supported a national abortion ban beginning at 20 weeks of pregnancy, co-sponsored legislation to define human life as beginning at conception, and twice co-sponsored legislation to withdraw federal approval of the abortion-inducing medication Mifepristone. All told, he voted for eight abortion bans and 48 additional measures that would limit reproductive freedom during his years in office.
Congressman Rogers also sent numerous letters to constituents pledging to ban abortion and to “protect the lives of the unborn,” including a letter of support to people traveling to Washington D.C. for the anti-abortion March for Life in 2000.
“As you join with tens of thousands of marchers from across America on Monday, I pray that your message will be heard and heeded on Capitol Hill and in State Houses across the nation. Legislators like myself need your strength and your courage to keep us strong in the fight against the travesty that Roe v. Wade has visited upon our land,” he wrote. “Your commitment to this cause and the March for Life in Washington on Monday inspire us to fight on, to hold up the Word of God as our guiding principle, and to speak out on behalf of the unborn.”
Also in 2000, Rogers completed a candidate questionnaire for the Michigan Catholic Conference in which he backed the “Human Life Amendment,” which would ban abortion from the moment of conception and enshrine fetal personhood in the Constitution. “I oppose abortion at any time except to save the live [sic] of the mother.” The Human Life Amendment didn’t just threaten abortion but also IVF and contraception. That’s what fetal personhood does: It accords legal personhood rights to embryos and fetuses and threatens fertility treatments that require the disposal of unused embryos, as well as whatever contraceptives anti-abortion activists decide to equate with “abortifacients.”
In “retirement,” Rogers praised the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, and on Michigan Public Television in March 2023, said if he had lived in Michigan instead of Florida in 2022, he would have voted against Proposal 3. He also falsely claimed it allowed abortion “right up to the day of birth,” and said, “I’m a pro-life guy, I’ve voted pro-life, and I don’t walk away from that.”
In May and July of 2023, when asked about his opinion on abortion in two separate interviews, Rogers said he’s been a “pro-life candidate my entire career.”
Dodgy Mike Rogers can’t hide from his extensive record backing federal abortion bans and other legislation which would rip away Michiganders’ freedom to make their own personal medical decisions. It’s clear that Rogers will say and do anything to benefit himself, and Michigan voters can’t trust him.
The choice is clear. This election is about who you trust to protect your rights, and the rights of your children. It’s about the deeply personal decisions that Michigan families make every day about when and how to start a family and the pain of pregnancy loss. It’s about healthcare decisions made in consultation with a doctor, and whether politicians should be able to intervene in those private — and often tragic — moments.
Elissa Slotkin will fight for Michigan women to make those decisions in consultation with their loved ones and their healthcare providers, not politicians. And her record is crystal clear on this topic. No need to hide. No need to dodge.
Elect Elissa Slotkin to the U.S. Senate.
