Michigan GOP gubernatorial candidate doesn’t know how Plan B works, says he’d ban it

Garrett Soldano, a leading Republican candidate in Michigan’s race for Governor, said he’d be for banning Plan B, despite not knowing how Plan B works.

The Kalamazoo chiropractor and small business owner from southwest Michigan told an attendee at a campaign event on Mackinac Island over the weekend that he’d ban Plan B in cases where “conception happens.”

“If conception happens, you can’t use it,” he said. “Now, if you can prove conception didn’t happen, you can use it. Fine. It’s like contraception to me. But as soon as that joins, it’s over. That’s DNA, man.”

NEW: Garrett Soldano, GOP candidate for MI governor, says he wants to ban Plan B, then demonstrates he doesn’t understand how the morning-after pill works.

“If you can prove conception didn’t happen, you can use it. Fine… But as soon as that joins, it’s over. That’s DNA, man.” pic.twitter.com/M0ubTAg9UY

— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) June 7, 2022

Soldano’s stipulation is inconsistent with how Plan B works, as there is no possible way to “prove conception didn’t happen” during the window in which Plan B can be used. Plan B is only effective for three days after intercourse, hence why it’s known as the “morning-after” pill. The earliest possible pregnancy test can give results no sooner than 10 days after conception. Therefore, requiring proof of no conception in order to buy Plan B would effectively outlaw it. 

The chiropractor has long shown a misunderstanding of medicine. He said he was permanently banned from YouTube last year for allegedly spreading misinformation about COVID-19, specifically, that those who have contracted COVID-19 don’t need to be vaccinated. (They do.)

This also isn’t the first time Soldano has expressed anti-abortion views that are radical even for Republicans. He told a right-wing podcast earlier this year that rape victims shouldn’t have abortions: “That baby inside them may be the next president,” he said. 

Soldano later stood by his comments in a Facebook video, saying that “As governor, I will oppose any liberal efforts to expand abortion, and I will not be bullied by anyone over my beliefs.” Abortion is listed as one of Soldano’s top campaign issues on his website, which states that if elected governor in November, he will “do everything in my power to protect life and push back against the abortion lobby in Lansing and President Biden’s radical anti-life agenda.” 

He is one of five candidates, as of recent, who will appear on the Republican primary ballot for governor in August. Michigan’s election bureau announced last month that five candidates — including two frontrunners, former Detroit Police Chief James Craig and businessman Perry Johnson — failed to qualify for the Republican primary due to thousands of allegedly forged signatures on their nominating petitions.

This leaves Soldano as one of the leading contenders to possibly challenge Democratic incumbent Gretchen Whitmer this fall.

His team did not respond to a request for comment. An anonymous Democratic source provided the video on the condition of anonymity. 

Today also marks the anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, a landmark Supreme Court decision from 1965 in which the Court ruled that a state’s ban on contraceptives violated the right to marital privacy and therefore could not be enforced.