Republican attorney general candidate Matt DePerno speaks as stage pyrotechnics shoot off during the Michigan Republican Party's Red Wave Party at the State Capitol Building in Lansing on Saturday, Aug. 27, 2022. (Cory Morse | MLive.com)Cory Morse | MLive.com

After a recording caught Republican attorney general nominee Matt DePerno saying Plan B should be banned in Michigan, DePerno stood by his stance in an interview with MLive, saying the pill should be illegal to take “after conception has occurred.”

In an interview Tuesday, DePerno said the recording was taken out of context. He’s not opposed to contraceptives in any way, because, he said, Plan B is not a contraceptive.

“Life begins at conception, and is the Plan B pill being used at that time as a contraceptive or is it being used to terminate a pregnancy?” DePerno said. “That’s the kind of conversation we were having. I think that’s a difficult question to answer.”

But Dr. Elena Oatey, an OBGYN with Central Michigan University Medical Education Partners, said it’s not difficult at all.

“No, even if you believe life begins at conception, it’s not going to terminate a pregnancy,” Oatey said. “You know, that’s how the people opposed to Plan B market it that way but it’s really not. If you use it as appropriate, you’re using it as contraception.”

She added that a woman also would not be able to tell when precisely conception occurs.

“You don’t conceive immediately,” Oatey said. “This is to prevent you from being in that position, if you use it as directed.”

RELATED: What is the difference between Plan B and the abortion pill?

Plan B is a colloquial, catchall term for levonorgestrel or “morning-after” pills taken typically within one to three days after unprotected sex that lowers a woman’s chances of becoming pregnant.

DePerno’s position on the contraceptive pill became known following audio posted to Twitter by an account affiliated with the Democratic National Committee.

The original audio is credited to a progressive radio station called Hartland Signal and was shared widely on Twitter Tuesday, Sept 20.

“It’d be no different than, like, fentanyl,” he said in the recording. “It’s a state issue. It would be a state issue. The state has to ban it – and it should be banned – but it’s just an issue of how do you enforce that? How do you make sure it stops?”

The missing context, DePerno claimed to MLive, is that he thinks Plan B is banned under Michigan’s 1931 anti-abortion law — currently blocked by a judge from being enforced. It’s a law he believes needs clarification if anti-abortion advocates succeed in their appeal to have the statute reinstated.

DePerno thought efforts to strike down the law permanently might have “50-50″ odds of succeeding.

In the initial recording from the Hartland Signal, DePerno can be heard conversing with a man over the legality of abortion in Michigan when the man asks for DePerno’s opinion on the morning after pill.

In the recording, DePerno is first heard asking what Plan B is before acknowledging that “it’s an issue,” when the other man on tape asks if it could be banned.

“It’s an issue in terms of how do you enforce it,” DePerno said. “You gotta figure out how you ban the pill from the state. ... How do you stop it from coming in is the question?”

When the questioner asks if DePerno has any ideas on how to make that possible, DePerno says he did but does not elaborate any further than saying in the audio: “You have to stop it at the border.”

RELATED: Absent lawmakers, Dixon’s crime plan, Trump returns: The week in Michigan politics

Planned Parenthood’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sarah Wallett was emphatic in saying that Plan B “cannot be used to end a pregnancy” and that even if a woman took it while pregnant, it would not do anything to harm the fetus.

“It is not an abortifacient,” she said. “It does not cause abortions. It cannot cause abortions.”

If Plan B is used to prevent pregnancy, DePerno told MLive he has no issue.

“If it’s being used to end a life, I’m opposed to that,” DePerno said. “If it’s truly being used as a contraceptive I’m not opposed.”

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