All three Republican candidates for attorney general in Michigan have now criticized the landmark Supreme Court ruling that barred government bans on contraceptives.
The Detroit Free Press reports that the candidates -- former State House Speaker Tom Leonard, Michigan State Rep. Ryan Berman and attorney Matthew DePerno -- were asked during a debate last week whether the 1965 case Griswold v. Connecticut, which barred state governments from banning contraceptives, was rightly decided.
Leonard responded by flat-out saying the court shouldn't have ruled as it did.
"This case, much like Roe v. Wade, I believe was wrongly decided, because this is, it was an issue that trampled upon state's rights," he said. "It was an issue that should have been left up to the states."
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The two other candidates did not go that far, but they were nonetheless critical of the decision.
"The Supreme Court...has to decide, mark my words, that the privacy issue currently is unworkable," DePerno said in response to the question. "It's going to be a states rights issue on all these things, as it should be."
Berman, meanwhile, said he needed to research the ruling further, although he did say that he was "all about state's rights" and against "federal judicial activism."
Incumbent Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel pounced on the comments and used them to depict her rivals as too extreme.
"The party of 'limited government' wants direct involvement in everything you do in the bedroom," she wrote in response. "The Handmaids Tale is no longer dystopian fiction."
