Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is “not a doctor” and her opinion on medical issues “doesn’t matter,” she told CNN Tuesday, offering a decidedly different take from her medical pronouncements that shut down schools and businesses across Michigan just four years ago.

During a Tuesday appearance on The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Whitmer discussed Florida’s six-week abortion restriction and an Alabama Supreme Court case involving in vitro fertilization.

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Regarding the latter, Collins posed the question: “On that ruling in Alabama, you have not said whether or not you agree that frozen embryos are considered people. What is your position on that?”

Gov. Whitmer responds to Trump saying he’ll make a statement “next week” on Florida’s six-week ban going into effect: “It just tells you, you’ve gotta watch what the guy does, not listen to what he says. He changes his position all the time on this.” pic.twitter.com/fVbbZB5yGN

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) April 3, 2024

“Who cares what my position is, Kaitlan? What matters is what the parents and their doctor agree is whatever is right for them, how they define it. That’s the only one whose opinion should matter, not a judge, not a politician, not a governor from a different state.”

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Collins noted that Whitmer has “been out in the forefront on this issue” and pressed the governor for a real answer: “I think people would care what you think of that,” she said.

“Ya, but I’m not a doctor and I’m not in anyone’s individual situation,” Whitmer dodged, shifting focus to legislation she signed on Tuesday to allow for paid surrogacies.

The government and politicians, Whitmer said, shouldn’t “get in the middle of that choice.”

Whitmer’s hands-off approach to personal health care decisions like IVF stands in stark contrast to the authoritative tone from the governor’s office just four years ago, when Whitmer issued executive orders that shut down schools and businesses for months over “the widespread and severe health, economic, and social harms posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“To suppress the spread of COVID-19, to prevent the state’s health care system from being overwhelmed, to allow time for the production of critical test kits, ventilators, and personal protective equipment, and to avoid needless deaths, it is reasonable and necessary to direct residents to remain at home or in their place of residence to the maximum extent feasible,” Whitmer wrote in April 2020 as she issued Executive order No. 2020-42, one of many unilateral edicts from the governor during the pandemic.

Those medical decisions blocked children from attending school, restricted businesses from serving customers, prevented family members from consoling dying loved ones, forced toddlers to wear masks, locked the elderly in nursing homes, forced teens to test weekly for a disease that did not pose a serious health risk, and limited movements for all but “essential” workers, which included those who sell marijuana and liquor.

Whitmer ignored plans for pandemics developed by state health officials, public health and legal experts, opting instead to impose her authority until “the economic and fiscal harms from this pandemic are contained.”

The governor vowed to “beat the damn virus” and “eradicate COVID-19 once and for all,” despite clear and convincing evidence that was impossible.

The result is now obvious, and it supports the governor’s position that she is not, in fact, a doctor.

Recent analysis of school test scores shows it could be decades before students return to pre-pandemic reading proficiency. A quarter of Michigan’s small- and medium-sized businesses closed permanently during the pandemic, well above the national average. Another 34% cut jobs, a figure that was also above the national average, according to Crain’s Detroit Business.

By 2022, the damage from Whitmer’s medical decisions on behalf of all Michiganders had translated into 81,900 lost jobs, and a state economy that took far longer than others to recover.

“Gretchen Whitmer implemented the most draconian and extreme lockdowns in the country throughout the pandemic,” Tudor Dixon, Whitmer’s Republican challenger, said at the time. “She destroyed our small business community … and forced hard working Michiganders to follow her intrusive orders that picked winners and losers. That is her economic legacy.”