Abortion Care Resumed in Wisconsin Planned Parenthoods

By ADELINE TRAMMELL

On September 18th 2023, Planned Parenthood locations in Madison and Milwaukee resumed their abortion care. This comes after over a year of the service being unavailable due to abortion providers fears about being prosecuted under a pre-Civil War law. The thing that changed this fear and uncertainty was a recent court ruling confirming that the law didn’t concern medical abortions. 

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, Wisconsin Planned Parenthoods have been in a tough spot. Unlike states such as Texas and Alabama, no laws were put into place in Wisconsin to criminalize abortion immediately when Roe was repealed. However, abortion providers in the state were concerned about a law from 1849 that some officials said made abortion illegal. When Roe v. Wade was in effect this law had no impact as federal rulings took priority over state laws, but the repeal made this previously unimportant law a very big deal.

In July it was ruled by Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper that the 1849 law had no impact on the current state of abortions in Wisconsin. “There is no such thing as an ‘1849 Abortion Ban’ in Wisconsin,” Judge Schlipper stated. Her ruling was that this law only concerned assault on mothers that killed the baby and not consensual abortions provided in medical settings. This has precedent, as the law was framed as purely regarding feticide in past court cases. After the ruling, the president of Planned Parenthood Wisconsin (PPWI) made a public statement saying that this made it “clear that the 1849 law was not enforceable for voluntary abortions.” Due to this, PPWI began providing abortions again on the 18th in both their Madison and Milwaulkee clinics.

The chance that this ruling gets challenged and taken to the Wisconsin Supreme Court is high, but for now abortion providers like Planned Parenthood are good to continue their services. Within a day of the services being resumed both locations were completely booked, further proving the necessity of the care for the women of this state.