Planned Parenthood Resumes Abortion Services in Wisconsin
Do you support Planned Parenthood's decision?
What's the story?
- Planned Parenthood will resume abortion services in Wisconsin for the first time in over a year after a complaint against an 1849 statute banning abortions was challenged in the courts.
- Planned Parenthood paused all abortion services following the Supreme Court's landmark decision on Roe v. Wade last summer, which caused abortion laws to devolve to the states.
A legal battleground
- The overturn of Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson triggered a Wisconsin state law from 1849 that banned abortion in the state. Last year, Wisconsin's Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a complaint, arguing that the 1849 statute does not apply and conflicts with a newer law from the 1980s that permits abortion in the first and second trimesters.
- Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper ruled in Kaul's favor and decided that the case could go forward, arguing that the 1849 statute outlaws killing fetuses but doesn't apply to consensual medical abortions. Her ruling enabled Planned Parenthood to resume abortion services.
- Michelle Velasquez from Planned Parenthood Wisconsin said:
"It's a really exciting day for people to know that they can access the health care that they need, when they need it, here, without having to figure out how they might get out of state."
"We always maintained that 1849 law didn't just sort of immediately come back to life and become enforceable against abortions again, but we knew that there was a real threat of folks attempting to enforce that law. With a recognition that there was some uncertainty around that, we paused services, and we really committed to our communities and to patients and people in the state that we would resume services when we had a pathway to do so."
A long road ahead
- Even if the Attorney General wins his lawsuit and the 1849 statute is not upheld, access to abortion care in Wisconsin is still fraught with challenges. Before federal abortion protections were overturned, clinics operated under 24-hour waiting periods, there was a ban on telemedicine abortions and a block on state Medicaid funding.
- Democratic Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard said there is still:
"A large mountain to climb to ensure that reproductive bodies in the state of Wisconsin have the autonomy to make their own health care decisions."
- Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said:
"I will pray tonight for all the unborn children who won't have the opportunity to be born."
Do you support Planned Parenthood's decision?
—Emma Kansiz
(Photo Credit: Canva)
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When the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling (June 2022) that had granted the right to abortion authority reverted to states on abortion which in the case of Wisconsin was an 1849 law prohibiting the killing of fetuses. A subsequent Wisconsin case (July 2023) found the 1849 law did not apply to abortions which allowed Planned Parenthood to resume operation.
Unfortunately the Supreme Court Case created chaos in states trying to figure out which laws applied after overturning a 50+ year landmark Supreme Court decision. Fortunately the Wisconsin Courts were able to sort this out though it took over 1 year which left reproductive healthcare in Wisconsin in chaos.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/planned-parenthood-resume-abortions-wisconsin-first-time-since-2022-2023-09-14/
Abortion is not a federal issue.
its a choice left up to people of each state.
Its not the governments business either way.
for me personally it's the same as murder
but that between the mother and God.
YAY!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
My body, my choice. This is not a political decision. It's personal. No one approved a law that tells men if they can have a vasectomy or not, it's absurd and invasive. It's personal.
The decision should be that of the woman, not POLITICIANS or anyone not willing to take the unwanted child and raise them in their home. Those not able to do so should be made to pay child support. This should be legislated by the states and watched by the officials to be certain these children are cared for.
Oppose
Planned Parenthood has lost its initial mission to provide women with cost effective Healthcare. Many abortion are not healthcare
kudos
The GOP screams about an over-reaching Government, except when they control things, ever notice that?
Planned Parenthood saves lives. They saved mine!!!
Every woman should have unfettered access to reroductive healthcare, including abortions, in ALL cases, without exception. Don't believe in abortion? Simple, don't get one, and, leave everyone else alone. Problem solved!
Thank God. Pro-life should include the life of the mother.
I support the free choice for women to make the best decisions about their own health care. I applaud Planned Parenthood for making that possible for the women of Wisconsin and any other women who can travel there. Old white men and Republicans need to butt out of women's bodily autonomy.
People, especially women, are quite rightfully fed up with political figures imposing their personal beliefs and opinions on everyone else through failures to pass meaningful legislation guaranting individual rights to govern their own bodies and lives. We need to have term limits for all government offices so we clean house every other term so that we can make progress once again.
A woman's right to choose an abortion instead of carrying a fetus to term, is her decision. The government has no business dictating any thing about a woman's right to choose.
We need to stand with planned parenthood which supports sex Ed and and sexual health screenings and prevention
A woman's choice is her own decision not anybody else's. Rowe versus Wade should never have been over turned. It's all partisan politics at its worst.
Only right!
Planned Parenthood can and should do whatever they want as long as it's legal and as long as the organization doesn't receive government subsidies.