Joan Jacobson and 84-year-old concerned citizen went house to house to talk to voters about a Michigan abortion law called Proposal 3 that will be decided in the November elections. Jacobsen is a pro-life activist and was shot in the back by a Michigan man after leaving his home.

 

The Daily Signal said Jacobsen told her story in a phone interview on Thursday. She said she spoke with Sharon Harvey about a pro-abortion ballot proposal when Harvey became “hostile, belligerent, and antagonistic” and said Harvey yelled over her and finally ordered her off the property. Joan is a 120-pound woman, standing 5 feet tall. She said Harvey followed her down the porch to the sidewalk, yelling at her, when Richard Harvey, Sharon’s husband, appeared in the yard with a .22 caliber rifle.

“When that registered in my mind, I heard a shot, I felt some pain, and I thought he had hit me in the back,” she said. Upon reaching the hospital, Jacobson learned that the bullet went through her shoulder, narrowly missing her spine. “I was just in shock. I said to myself, ‘Did I just get shot? Did he just shoot me?”

She continued, “They didn’t say anything, I didn’t say anything. I just headed back to my car and tried to ascertain if I could drive … I didn’t feel lightheaded or like I was going to pass out or anything. I thought, ‘I gotta get out of here.’ I got into the car and they were standing by the sidewalk, I looked through the car window, and I had a thought that went through my mind, I thought, ‘This guy is going to shoot me again through the window of the car!’ He didn’t, and I was able to get the car started, get into gear, get on the road.”

Jacobsen said she believed the shot was fired intentionally, “I do think that he knew what he was doing,” she said. “I think it was intentional.”

Harvey claims his finger was still on the trigger because he had first fired a warning shot but claims he did not mean to hit her on his second shot. Instead, he accused Jacobsen of waving around a clipboard and said he thought she might hit his wife with it.

Jacobsen says she does think Harvey should be charged,
“I don’t think that people should feel like they can’t go and talk to their neighbors without feeling like they’re going to get shot at. Whatever the law says for somebody who intentionally is shooting at somebody. I know a lot of my friends are telling me that they think he meant to kill me. I’m not going to go that far. I don’t know. I just think he wanted to hurt me.”

Jacobsen is committed to seeing proposal three defeated and is willing to continue helping,

“I’m going to continue to help as much as I can,” she said, adding, “Yeah, I’m reluctant … they do tell you, don’t go alone, go with two. And at this point in time, I’m definitely telling my pro-life friends, take somebody with you and you have a camera, your cellphone with a camera, and that you can take pictures.”

 

If Proposal 3 passes, Michigan would allow abortions through all nine months of pregnancy and also  allow anyone, including people without medical training, to “assist” in an abortion.

Senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, John Bursch analyzed the Proposal saying it would erase up to 47 current state laws on late-term abortions, infanticide, parental consent, the age of consent to have sex, abortion facility inspections and other safety measures. The new Proposal would even allow a young 12 year old the ability to have an abortion without her parents knowledge.

Citizens to Support Michigan Women and Children found numerous errors and issues with the Proposal and fought to keep it off the ballot but were overruled by Michigan’s Supreme court.

The group warns in an analysis that the amendment makes consent the only legal limit on reproduction rights. “If someone convinces a child to be sterilized, the parents have no say. This applies to anything related to pregnancy. Laws preventing adults from having sex with children could be impacted, since sex is related to pregnancy, and it never defines individuals as adults. If a brother and sister want to have a child together, this amendment gives them an absolute right to do that. It doesn’t matter if the amendment authors didn’t intend to throw into question laws against statutory rape or incest. What matters is the confusing text of the amendment they wrote.”

 

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