Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) appeared on the Axe Files Podcast Thursday where she said it is “ridiculous” to include abortion among other elective procedures banned during the pandemic, because abortion, she said, is “life sustaining.”

“[W]e stopped elective surgeries here in Michigan,” Whitmer told host David Axelrod, who served as chief strategist for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, about abortion.

“Some people have tried to say that that type of a procedure is considered the same and that’s ridiculous,” she said, adding:

You know a woman’s health care, her whole future, her ability to decide if and when she starts a family, is, is not an election. It is a fundamental to her life. It is life-sustaining and it’s something that government should not be getting in the middle of.

As pro-life organization Live Action reported, in early April, activists were threatened with jail for protesting outside an abortion clinic in Detroit during Whitmer’s stay-at-home order. The protesters filed a lawsuit against Whitmer and the City of Detroit that sought to “protect and vindicate fundamental constitutional rights.”

After the lawsuit, Whitmer “clarified” her stance, said the Detroit News, and exempted those participating in activity that is protected by the First Amendment from the stay-at-home order.

Planned Parenthood and its allies have been largely successful in getting courts to temporarily block states that have included abortion among the elective procedures banned in order to preserve scare medical equipment for healthcare workers treating victims of the infection caused by the coronavirus.

When told by a reporter that many people don’t consider abortion an “elective” procedure, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton responded:

They always claimed it was a choice. They’re the ones who have always said that it is elective, so by their very own definitions, the way they phrase their own terminology and definition, it’s always been a choice and today is no different. They’ve been claiming that for years and years and years. They’ve claimed that this is all about choice, so clearly there is a lot of election involved in this and it is a choice and today’s no different.

The narrative that Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers are being singled out was challenged by Dr. Christina Francis, chair of the board of the American Association of Prolife OB/GYN’s (AAPLOG).

Francis recently told Breitbart News:

Elective surgeries and procedures across the country are being postponed indefinitely – and this even includes some surgeries for cancer, joint replacements in people living with debilitating pain, life transforming reconstructive surgeries, and the list goes on and on.

Francis remarked that abortion activists such as Alexis McGill Johnson, acting CEO of Planned Parenthood, are daring “to assert that an elective procedure that ends the life of one human being and harms the other is more essential than these (not to mention the fact that women are being packed into Planned Parenthood waiting rooms in direct defiance of social distancing orders)?”

She added that Planned Parenthood, which profits from abortions, “has proven time and time again that its sole focus is abortion, not women’s healthcare.”

In January 2019, former Planned Parenthood President Dr. Leana Wen, confirmed the organization’s “core mission” is abortion:

First, our core mission is providing, protecting and expanding access to abortion and reproductive health care. We will never back down from that fight – it’s a fundamental human right and women’s lives are at stake. — Leana Wen, M.D. (@DrLeanaWen) January 8, 2019

Francis explained many of Planned Parenthood clinics have shut down all services except abortions during the pandemic.

“If they were truly concerned about women’s health, they would be providing those other services and not doing abortions,” she said. “Abortion proponents continuously assert that abortion is essential women’s healthcare, when, in fact, it is neither essential nor healthcare.”