Abortion restrictions and bans passed in states across the country mobilized crowds across the nation and in Michigan on Tuesday to gather and protest the controversial laws.

"This has lit a fire all across the United States. There are 300 rallies being held today, including 20 right here in Michigan," Cecile Richard, the former president of Planned Parenthood, told a crowd of hundreds in Ann Arbor. "And this is a fire that is going to burn a pathway all the way to the White House next year."

She was joined by Michigan activists, women who have had abortions and even a rapper who led the crowd in chants of "My Body, My Choice."

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LaShawn Erby, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Lansing chapter, told the crowd that women don't need anyone policing their bodies and urged the crowds to become active in the upcoming election to enact progressive change.

"All of this is a systematic plot, to little by little lose our rights," she said. "We have to show up at the ballot box because the same forces who are attacking blacks, immigrants and Muslims are the same forces who are attacking women."

The crowd was protesting laws across the United States, including a near total ban on abortion in Alabama, and several anti-abortion laws passed in Michigan.

"These conservatives bring the power of the state into your medical decisions," said state Sen. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor. "Next year, Michigan is going to be a battleground state and every one of us has the chance to stand up to protect our rights."

At a Ferndale rally, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel was greeted with chants of “Dana! Dana!” as she stood before a crowd of about 300 people in the parking lot of City Hall. Some attendees carried wire hangers and held homemade signs with sayings like, “My body, my choice.”

Nessel pledged to never prosecute a woman or a doctor for making the decision to terminate a pregnancy.

“I intend to use the office of Michigan attorney general to fight back and to fight back as aggressively as possible, and I hope all of you will understand that this is a time of great importance, and we have to make certain that we turn the state Legislature into a body, both chambers, that is 100% pro-choice,” she said to applause.

In the crowd, Amy Lesiewicz, 41, of Hazel Park wore a large sign around her neck that said, “KEEP ABORTION LEGAL SAFE ACCESSIBLE RARE.”

“I believe that women’s choice of if and when to have children affects every aspect of their lives,” she said. “They deserve to have all the options that are safe, legal and medically available to them.”

The Ferndale rally was organized by the political action committee Fems for Dems.

The Michigan House of Representatives and Senate passed bills last week that would ban an abortion procedure called dilation and evacuation, which is a common method used during the second trimester of pregnancy.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has said she will veto this and any other legislation that further limits access to abortion.

As a result, Michigan Right to Life has formed a committee — Michigan Values Life — to begin gathering signatures for a citizen-led legislative initiative to ban D&E abortions, which they refer to as "dismemberment abortion." By gathering about 340,000 signatures from registered voters, the group can put the initiative before the Legislature to pass and it would automatically become law without the need for a signature from Whitmer.

A separate ballot committee — the Michigan Heartbeat Coalition — filed petition language Tuesday seeking to ban abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which typically happens at about the sixth week in pregnancy when many women don't even know they're pregnant.

Those legislative actions in Michigan, as well as across the country, have fueled abortion rights supporters to mobilize against the bans.

Jane, a Lansing woman who didn't want her full name used, dressed in the "Handmaid's Tale" costume of a floor length red robe and white habit on her head to protest in front of the Capitol on Tuesday.

"I fought for abortion rights in the '70s and I'm pissed that I have to do it again," she said. "With everything they should be working on, like the roads, and they're doing this?"

R. Stern, a retired nurse from Ann Arbor, came to the rally and feared that the abortion battle was just another way to keep women down at a time when they're finding their voices on a local, state and national level.

"I feel like we’re drifting backward," she said. "This is a part of a whole effort to keep women down. It's really disheartening to see them trying to silence the voice of women."

With chants of "Stop the war on women" and "Hey, hey, ho, ho, abortion bans have got to go," the crowd, which was predominantly women, wore their sentiments on signs and T-shirts, ranging from "No room for your religion in my uterus" and "If it's not your body, it's not your decision." Many of the signs bore hand-drawn pictures of hangers, harkening back to the day of back-alley abortions before the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade decision that affirmed a constitutional right to an abortion.

Many in the crowd feared that the concerted effort by legislatures across the country would lead to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has grown more conservative with two appointments from President Donald Trump, ultimately overturning Roe.

"You know what oppression looks like and we’re seeing it here today," said Lori Carpentier, president of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan. "What you said by being here today, is that we’re not going back to 1971. We’re not going to be dragged by the hair back to a time when we didn't have the ability to decide for ourselves."

In addition to the hundreds of abortion rights supporters, several dozen anti-abortion protesters bearing signs with graphic photos of aborted fetuses stood along the perimeter of the Diag on the University of Michigan campus, silently adding their sentiments to the abortion rally.

Contact Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430, kgray99@freepress.com or on Twitter @michpoligal.