Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) has approved a controversial package of abortion restrictions that will limit abortion access for women who live in rural areas, require doctors to prove that mentally competent women haven’t been “coerced” into their decision to have the procedure, and enact unnecessary, complicated rules for abortion clinics and providers. The governor signed HB 5711 into law on Friday despite widespread protests against the omnibus anti-abortion measure.

Snyder claims that HB 5711 “respects a woman’s right to choose while helping protect her health and safety.” But women’s health advocates warn the law will seriously threaten women’s access to the health services they need by imposing harsh regulations on abortion clinics and providers:

Critics of the Michigan law fear its insistence on new, standalone facilities will hurt women in rural and low-income areas as it could force some clinics to close. They say questioning women on whether an abortion is voluntary subjects them to a type of interrogation.

The Center for Reproductive Rights, an abortion rights group that opposed the measure, said it could force many existing abortion providers in the state to either tear down their offices and rebuild from the ground up — or shutter their practices. [...]

“Safety was never the intention of this law. The only thing this law accomplishes is to make a difficult decision even more difficult,” said Rana Elmir, the communications director for the Michigan ACLU.

Even some state lawmakers who supported HB 5711 acknowledge the law isn’t actually intended to protect women. “This is about protecting fetuses,” one Republican legislator explained.

Michigan legislators were quick to capitalize on this year’s lame duck session to push through controversial abortion restrictions, potentially because five anti-choice state lawmakers lost their seats in November’s election. The majority of Michigan voters support legal access to abortion services.

Michigan lawmakers moved quickly to push an omnibus abortion bill through their lame duck session last week. Despite the massive undertaking that House Bill 5711 represents — the measure combines several of the worst attacks on women’s reproductive freedom into one 45-page piece of legislation — some GOP legislators may not have even bothered to read its full contents before making up their minds about it.

RH Reality Check flags an account from Emily Magner, who brought a group of her social work students to Lansing to discuss HB 5711 with their state legislators in late November. Magner recounts the conversation she had with state Sen. Howard Walker (R) — who ended up voting for the measure in early December — in which he admitted he initially threw his support behind the bill without reading it first:

We went on to talk specifically about how this bill will harm Michigan women, disproportionately women living in rural areas like ours. After we brought up a few of these points he put up his hands and said that he couldn’t really speak to those topics … he had not read the bill.

In front of him was a one paragraph synopsis I assume was from the Right to Life special interest organization who drafted the bill. [...]

We spoke with him for 20 minutes, the whole time he was dismissive, misinformed, and rude. When his handler told him, “5 more minutes,” I told him that I would never ask him to change his beliefs on abortion, I would protect his right to believe whatever he wanted, but I did want him to consider the harmful implications that this legislation would have on women and consider his ethical obligation to his field to leave his personal views at the door.

Before I could finish my sentence, he waved his hand dismissively and interrupted, “THIS ISN’T ABOUT WOMEN! THIS IS ABOUT PROTECTING FETUSES!”

It’s unclear whether or not Walker did have a chance to read the bill in between his November meeting with Magner and his December vote — but if he had delved a bit deeper into the legislation, he would have discovered that enacting HB 5711 would have several detrimental effects on the women in Michigan.

HB 5711 seeks to impose a host of new restrictions — such as requiring doctors to prove that mentally competent women haven’t been “coerced” into having the elective procedure, limiting abortion access for women in rural areas, and imposing unnecessary, complicated rules to regulate abortion clinics out of existence — that will ultimately hamper women’s ability to receive the health care they need. That’s why female members of Michigan’s House opposed the bill when it first came up for consideration, although their male colleagues were quick to deride them.

The measure has passed both chambers of the state legislature and now awaits Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s (R) signature.

Earlier this week, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) quietly approved anti-union “right-to-work” legislation, signing the bill into law behind closed doors despite widespread protests from unions. But that’s not the only radical piece of legislation the governor is likely to sign during the last few weeks of the lame duck session. Early on Friday morning, HB 5711 — a massive 45-page anti-abortion bill that combines several attacks on women’s reproductive freedom into one measure — passed the Michigan House by a 72-35 vote, and will now be sent straight to Snyder’s desk.

The House first passed HB 5711 in June. But after the state Senate made some slight changes to HB 5711 on Wednesday — removing the provision that would have required doctors to dispose of fetal remains in the same manner that they must handle the disposal of dead bodies, the first proposal of its kind in the nation — the legislation needed to be re-approved by the House. Even without the provision regarding fetal remains, the omnibus bill still seeks to impose a host of new restrictions on women seeking to terminate a pregnancy, doctors who administer abortion services, and women’s health clinics.

The state’s last-minute push to threaten women’s health services is directly contradictory to the message that voters sent in last month’s election. The majority of Michigan residents support legal access to abortion services. And this particular piece of legislation sparked a massive outcry over the summer, culminating in a defiant performance of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues on the steps on the Michigan Capitol building.

Nonetheless, the Detroit Free Press reports that Snyder is expected to sign HB 5711 into law.