by Benjamin Yount
It remains to be seen just how quickly the return of abortion in Wisconsin will end up before a judge after Planned Parenthood on Monday started offering abortion services at its clinics in Milwaukee and Madison.
“Thank you so much for your enthusiasm that PPWI has restarted abortion services! We are as thrilled as you are! We haven’t been able to respond to all our DMs, comment on every thread about abortion, or talk to you individually about how you can help (but we’re trying),” Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin said on social media Monday.
They weren’t the only ones celebrating.
“This is a monumental moment in the movement to win back our reproductive freedom. Since the overturning of Roe, Wisconsinites have taken to the streets to make it clear that they will not have their reproductive rights stripped away from them. They headed to the ballot box and showed overwhelming support for the right to abortion,” Dr. Melinda Brennan, executive director of the ACLU of Wisconsin, said in a statement.
Planned Parenthood announced last week it would resume abortions in the state, with the idea being to fast-track the legal challenge to Wisconsin’s 1849 pre-Roe law.
A judge in Dane County has said that law doesn’t apply to abortion, rather it only applies to feticide.
Planned Parenthood says Wisconsin’s abortion law is unenforceable.
Gracie Skogman, legislative/PAC director for Wisconsin Right to Life, told The Center Square it’s too early to know if the group will sue to stop abortions.
“Right now, we are looking at all of our options,” Skogman said. “Whether that’s legally through the courts or legislatively.”
Skogman said “it’s a waiting game.”
Planned Parenthood stopped providing abortions in Wisconsin after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.
Since then, Skogman said, many more women have chosen life.
“Our argument as pro-life advocates is to turn to the pregnancy resource centers and the fact that many of them have reported an over-50% increase in clients in the months, and now year since Roe was overturned.”
State Rep. Chuck Wichgers, R-Muskego, said despite Planned Parenthood’s action Monday, he said abortion is still illegal in Wisconsin.
“There has been no change in the law and the Wisconsin Supreme Court has issued no ruling on this case,” Wichgers said. “One liberal judge declared that the state law does not apply to abortion, but rather ‘feticide.’ Statute 940.04 is clear and that is nonsense. It absolutely applies to abortion. Planned Parenthood’s brazen move is in total disregard for the rule of law,” Wichgers said.
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Benjamin Yount is a staff reporter at The Center Square.
Photo “State Rep Chuck Wichgers” by State Rep Chuck Wichgers.
