submitted by Anna-Marie Pluymert, Director of Communication/Education – Right to Life of Michigan

The grim headline from MIRS, a Michigan capital news service: “Birth-Death Ratio Negative In Michigan, Life Expectancy Drops.”

There’s only one way to describe a state that sadly accepts this reality: dying. For the first time in Michigan’s history, more are dying than are being born.

The headline should be familiar, since those numbers were true in 2020. Those numbers should be a topic of everyday discussion, but it seems the headline will be quickly lost in our ridiculous news cycle.

There were 117,756 total deaths in Michigan in 2021, versus 105,022 births, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

Why is Michigan dying? And, perhaps more importantly, why do so few seem to care?

Many causes can be pinpointed. Globalization and the loss of manufacturing. Crime and poor governance. Fentanyl and drug abuse, especially for the drop in life expectancy. A general malaise that leads people into deaths of despair. COVID-19.

But we’re talking about births, so we must talk about abortion. In 2021, we took the lives of 30,074 babies in Michigan. Those numbers alone make the difference. Since 1973, when Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in Michigan, we’ve taken the lives of an estimated 1,570,000 babies here.

But as the vote for Proposal 3 in the November election indicated, Michiganders who aren’t too knowledgeable about abortion thought it was necessary on some limited level—even though Proposal 3 will be taking away any conceivable limits.

In fact, Governor Whitmer is laboring under the delusion that only by aborting more and more babies will we convince people and businesses to move to our suicidal state.

Many people believe humanity is the problem, and that prosperity can only be found by eliminating “dead weight.” This “truth” has been beaten into our heads in the classroom, on the TV, on social media, and everywhere else. A few days ago, CBS’s 60 Minutes wheeled out failed doomsayer Paul Ehrlich to update the overpopulation apocalypse from the 1970s to sometime soon.

Our society is conditioned to demand that everything always progresses for the better. So, perhaps believing the slow death of Michigan is a key to prosperity is just a coping mechanism. But as all experience has shown us, a declining population and declining life expectancy doesn’t mean we’re going to be inheriting and enjoying more riches. It just means more death and economic decline approaching in the rear-view mirror.