Garrett Soldano is one of the leading Republican gubernatorial candidates in Michigan. He’s also a former Western Michigan University (WMU) football star, Kalamazoo-based chiropractor, devout anti-vaxxer, and best of all … a firewalking instructor.
What he isn’t is someone who understands contraception or how conception even works. In recent footage from Heartland Signal, the anti-choice extremist was asked about banning Plan B if he were elected. He offered a completely clueless response.
“Like the after morning… If conception happens, you can’t use it,” he said while chewing gum.
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“So that would be something you would try to do as governor,” the interviewer presses.
“Yeah, if conception happens, you can’t— Like, that’s just— That’s my belief. Now, if you can prove that 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,” Soldano says.
Of course, there’s no way to “prove conception didn’t happen.” It can’t be proven with any current tools at our disposal, and even getting proof that conception has occurred won’t come from a pregnancy test until at least 10 days have passed—and even then, it’s unreliable. Plan B is used in the first three days after intercourse, which is why it’s called “the morning-after pill.” But Soldano, 43, has a history of missteps in his understanding of science.
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Last year, The Detroit News reported that Soldano had been permanently banned from YouTube for “severe or repeated violations” of the site’s guidelines after spreading misinformation about COVID-19. Many of his videos included assertions that kids can be hurt by wearing masks (untrue), and that because they have a natural immunity to COVID-19 (very untrue), they don’t need vaccines (the most untrue).
More frightening even than his nonsense around masks and vaccines are his militant “100% unapologetically pro-life” views—even in the case of rape or incest.
Michigan Dems reports that Soldano is a proponent of the outdated 1931 Michigan law that criminalizes abortion—a law that, if reinstated, would make reproductive health care providers felons. Soldano has vowed to revive the law if elected.
During a January interview on the Face the Facts podcast, Solando said that when it comes to a person’s choice to get an abortion in the case of rape, “I’m always going to fight for life.”
Heartland Signal posted the video on Twitter. During the interview, Soldano told a story about a “friend” who was adopted at birth. While researching his birth mother, this friend discovered that the woman who had given him up for adoption had been “gang-raped in a subway train station by five guys.” Soldano explained that, although devastated, his friend began to “appreciate and understand” what his birth mother went through and that she’d had the “courage” to deliver him. He went on to say that rape survivors are “heroic” and that “God put them in this moment.” Even though only 45 different people in the nation’s history have served as commander in chief, Soldano has high hopes for children who are born to victims of rape: “They don’t know, but that baby inside of them may be the next president.”
Democratic State Sen. Erika Geiss called Soldano’s comments “disgusting.” In a tweet, Geiss fired back: “We should be inspiring women who’ve been raped to press charges & we should have a system that takes them seriously. We should have a world where men don’t think they’re entitled to women’s bodies. We should have a world where ppl respect #ReproRights.”
Soldano, who is also the author of God’s True Law, a Parent’s Guide To Raising Successful Children, has never run for office before. His turn to politics began in 2020 with a Facebook page opposing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s “excessive quarantine” policies, Bridge Michigan reports.
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