Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer plans to use her line-item veto to strike more than $20 million from the state budget bill designed to encourage adoption and support pro-life pregnancy facilities, igniting an outcry from abortion foes.
The Democratic governor’s office said she will finish signing Wednesday a $76 billion 2022-23 state budget that omits a half-dozen items passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature, such as a $2 million adoption tax credit and $10 million to promote adoption “as an alternative to abortion.”
Other expenses on the chopping block include $4 million for maternity homes expansion; $3 million for a maternal navigator pilot program; $700,000 for the Real Alternatives pregnancy program, which promotes “childbirth, alternatives to abortion, and grief counseling.