The Michigan Catholic Conference (MCC) blasted Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s twisted logic in banning gardening under the coronavirus lockdown while allowing abortions to continue unabated.

In a strongly worded statement, the MCC — the official voice of the Catholic Church in Michigan —condemned Ms. Whitmer’s subservience to the abortion lobby, insisting that Michiganders need the governor’s sole focus “to be on the needs of the people of Michigan, not the demands of the abortion industry.”

The April 19 statement came in response to an appearance by the governor on a CNN podcast in which she was asked why she had exempted abortion clinics from her executive order shutting down all Michigan businesses and operations “that are not necessary to sustain or protect life.”

In response, Governor Whitmer made the remarkable assertion abortion is “life sustaining.”

“A woman’s healthcare, her whole future, her ability to decide if and when she starts a family is not an election, it is a fundamental to her life,” she said.

The Michigan Catholic Conference (MCC), whose chairman is Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron, responded that the governor’s understanding of life issues has become “bifurcated and confusing.”

“Governor Whitmer’s comment that abortion is ‘life-sustaining’ comes as no surprise; for most if not all of her political career the governor has carried the banner for abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy,” the statement declared. “Her comments indicate how easily candidates for higher office are pushed into a dark corner by the abortion industry. Joe Biden’s abdication of his forty-year support for the Hyde Amendment no doubt paved the way.”

The MCC statement also underscored the irony that the governor has allowed an activity that kills human beings while outlawing the purchase of seeds and gardening tools that truly sustain life.

The governor “insists that elective abortions continue, as she believes the procedure ‘sustains life,’” the statement reads. “The logic is removed from reality: night is not day; war is not peace.”

“How can Governor Whitmer on the one hand prohibit medical surgeries and the growth of food through gardening yet refer to a procedure that intentionally destroys a developing human person as ‘life sustaining?’” the statement asks.

“We call on Governor Whitmer to pause and reflect on the wounds her comments have created for countless people in this state and elsewhere,” the MCC said.

Follow @tdwilliamsrome