Mike Rogers (MI) has spent two Senate campaigns telling Michigan the same thing about abortion: voters settled it in 2022, he respects that, and he won't do anything in Washington to change it. In 2024 he went further and said he would vote against a national abortion ban.

On Thursday, October 29, five days before the election, he told a different audience something different.

Bob Dutko, a Detroit-area Christian radio host, asked Rogers whether his listeners could count on him not to join Democrats on abortion and other social issues. In the published excerpts, Rogers answered by pointing to his record.

"You don't even have to think about it twice. I mean, I feel I've been very open about all of those issues, including for the time I was in Congress having a 100% pro-life rating."

He went on to say he was raised in a family of "conservative Christians," the Metro Times reported, and told Dutko's listeners what to expect if he wins: "This is the only way that I know how to be when I go back to the United States Senate." The Detroit Metro Times reported the interview on Saturday.

What he was asked

The Michigan Democratic Party published audio and a transcript of the exchange. In that transcript, Dutko tells Rogers his audience is "primarily born again evangelical Christians" and asks whether they need to worry about Rogers joining Democrats on abortions "for all nine months of pregnancy for any reason whatsoever."

The Democrats' headline says Rogers "confirms he'll vote for a national abortion ban." He did not say those words. In the published transcript, neither man says "national ban," and Rogers does not mention a bill. What he did was answer a question about how he'd vote in the Senate by pointing to a perfect anti-abortion record, and promise that "this is the only way that I know how to be" when he goes back to the Senate.

That record is not ambiguous, and it is national.

The record he's proud of

For 14 years in the House, Rogers backed bill after bill to ban or restrict abortion across the whole country:

• On June 18, 2013, he voted yes on H.R. 1797, a nationwide ban on abortion after 20 weeks. It passed the House 228–196 and died in the Senate.
• In September 2013 he signed on as a cosponsor of the Life at Conception Act, which would have defined human life as beginning at the moment of fertilization. It was the fourth such "personhood" bill he backed, after the Right to Life Act in 2005, 2008 and 2009.
• In 2003 and 2005 he cosponsored bills to suspend the FDA's approval of mifepristone, the drug used in medication abortions.

Bridge Michigan's fact check, published Oct. 30, notes that the 2009 and 2013 personhood bills had no exception to protect pregnant women's health. It also found that in 2010 Rogers told MLive abortion should be legal "only to prevent the death of the mother." Experts told PolitiFact that personhood laws like the Life at Conception Act would restrict access to IVF and some birth control, and that emergency contraception could face legal challenges under them.

That is the "100% pro-life rating" he held up for Dutko's listeners as proof they could trust him.

What he's been telling everyone else

After Michigan voters wrote abortion rights into the state constitution in 2022 by 57% to 43%, Rogers started talking about the issue very differently.

• In September 2024 his campaign posted: "Michigan voters have made it clear where they stand on the issue of abortion — and I respect that. In the Senate, I won't do a thing to change it."
• In a July 2024 Michigan Public interview, asked whether he would support a national abortion ban if one came before the Senate, he said "No," said the states are "the best place to have this discussion," and answered "Yeah" when asked if that meant he would vote against it.
• In an October 2024 debate with Elissa Slotkin, he said he would do nothing in Washington that would change what Michigan voters decided, according to the Metro Times.
• In 2025, after launching this campaign, he wrote that he would "100% respect Michiganders' decision on the abortion issue," Bridge reported.
• And in the Bridge fact check published the day after the Dutko interview, a Rogers spokesperson confirmed he would not support federal legislation rolling back abortion access in Michigan, and said he supports exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.

None of that came up on the radio. There, the selling point was the record those statements were meant to make voters forget.

Before the "No," there was "I'd have to look at it"

The 2024 pledge came after a year of hedging. In March 2023, on Michigan Public Television's "Off the Record," Rogers said "I'm a pro-life guy, I've voted pro-life, and I don't walk away from that," the Michigan Independent reported. Two months later, at a New Hampshire town hall while he was weighing a presidential run, he was asked whether he would veto a national abortion ban as president. His answer: "I'd have to look at it."

Both answers left room. "I'd have to look at it" isn't a no, and "I don't walk away from that" is a promise to keep the record. The July 2024 "No" was the clearest thing he has said. Five days before this election, asked by an evangelical audience, he didn't repeat it. He pointed them to the record instead.

He has company in this. We've documented six other Republicans who spent years fighting abortion rights and then said, with their names on the 2026 ballot, that they won't touch them.

The money is betting on the radio version

The people paying for this race seem to know which Rogers they're getting.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and its Women Speak Out PAC announced a $4.5 million field campaign to win this seat, to "defend and grow our pro-life majority in the U.S. Senate," the group's president said, as the Michigan Advance reported.

And on October 23, the National Pro-Life Alliance PAC gave Rogers's campaign $5,000, according to the campaign's own last-minute FEC filing. The Metro Times reports the group has pushed for the Life at Conception Act, the same no-exceptions personhood bill Rogers cosponsored in 2013.

A pattern, not a slip

Abortion isn't the only issue where Rogers tells different audiences different things. He mocked Michiganders for worrying about tariff prices, then ran an ad demanding an end to the tariff war with 27 days left. The Metro Times lists Iran, gas taxes and data centers as other places he has switched sides when the politics changed.

On abortion, he has two versions running at once. General-election voters hear that he'll vote against a national ban and leave Michigan's amendment alone. Evangelical radio listeners hear about his 100% pro-life record, and that "this is the only way that I know how to be" in the Senate.

What the record shows

Mike Rogers (MI) voted for a nationwide 20-week abortion ban in 2013 and cosponsored four personhood bills and two bills to pull the abortion pill. In July 2024 he said he would vote against a national abortion ban, and his campaign told Bridge Michigan on Oct. 30 that he would not support federal legislation rolling back abortion access in Michigan. The day before, asked on Christian radio to promise he wouldn't side with Democrats on abortion, he cited his 100% pro-life rating and said "this is the only way that I know how to be" in the Senate. He did not say the words "national ban" on the radio, and he did not repeat his 2024 pledge to vote against one.

Source

Mike Rogers is back to bragging about his anti-abortion record, Detroit Metro Times, October 31, 2026