Fact check: Mike Rogers backed abortion bans, says he won’t undo Michigan rights

Democratic ad claims Republican Mike Rogers ‘spent his career’ fighting abortion access
Rogers supported abortion ban legislation in congress on multiple occasions
GOP Senate nominee says he won’t seek to undo abortion rights approved by Michigan voters

In a new ad, Democratic US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed claims Republican rival Mike Rogers “spent his career” trying to take away abortion rights, which El-Sayed says he’d fight to protect if elected.

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Rogers has historically taken anti-abortion positions, supporting multiple bills in Congress that would have restricted abortion access and blocked FDA approval for mifepristone, an abortion drug taken orally.

But more recently, Rogers said he wouldn’t try to overturn abortion rights that Michigan voters added to the state constitution by approving Proposal 3 of 2022.

More fact checks:

Claims about Rogers’ past abortion positions are among several that Bridge Michigan is fact-checking ahead of the Nov. 3 election, including claims that El-Sayed is a “fake doctor.” The winner of the Senate race will succeed retiring Democrat Gary Peters.

The claims

In a new commercial released by his campaign, El-Sayed says that if elected to the Senate, he’ll “protect the right to choose” an abortion, contrasting himself with Rogers, who he claims “spent his career trying to take that choice away.”

Rogers, he said, supported abortion bans “with no exceptions, even to save the mother’s life.”

While abortion rights have not been a major issue in the campaign, advocacy group Reproductive Freedom for All says El-Sayed is among several Democratic candidates bringing the issue up as they make their closing arguments to voters.

The facts

In Congress, Rogers supported multiple bills that would have restricted access to abortion or abortion drugs:

In 2005, he co-sponsored a bill that would have suspended FDA approval of mifepristone until additional review of the drug was completed. The bill was never voted on in the House.
Rogers also co-sponsored the “Right to Life Act” in 2009 and the “Life at Conception Act” in 2013. Both sought to ban abortion by defining human life beginning at the “moment of fertilization” and did not include exceptions to protect pregnant women’s health. Neither bill passed.
Rogers voted for a separate 2013 bill that would have banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy but allowed exceptions, including for the life of the mother. The bill passed the House, but the Senate never voted on it.

Rogers told MLive in 2010 that “abortions should be legal only to prevent the death of the mother.”

Shortly after announcing his unsuccessful 2024 bid for US Senate, Rogers said he wouldn’t try to undo abortion rights added to the Michigan Constitution under Proposal 3, which voters approved in the wake of the US Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

Rogers said he wouldn’t have supported Proposal 3, although he was registered to vote in Florida when the measure was on the ballot. Later in the 2024 election cycle, he released an ad affirming that he wouldn’t do anything in the Senate to try to change the Michigan law.

In 2025, after announcing his current campaign for US Senate, Rogers wrote on social media: “I will 100% respect Michiganders’ decision on the abortion issue.”

President Donald Trump said in his 2024 campaign that he wouldn’t sign a federal abortion ban. His positions on abortion have shifted greatly over the years.

A campaign spokesperson confirmed Rogers wouldn’t support federal legislation to roll back abortion access in Michigan. The spokesperson also told Bridge that Rogers supports abortion access “in cases of rape, incest, and saving the mother’s life.”

The El-Sayed campaign told Bridge Michigan in a statement that Rogers has never broken with his party on abortion issues and that Rogers “voted 100% of the time with anti-abortion extremists in Congress.”

Bottom line

Rogers supported legislation to ban or restrict abortion access while in Congress but has more recently said he would not try to overturn voter-approved abortion rights in Michigan.