Abortion In Wisconsin

Abortion in Wisconsin is legal. 53% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

There is an abortion rights activist community in the state.  One abortion rights organization based in Wisconsin is Wisconsin Alliance for Reproductive Health.   Wisconsin women participated in the #YouKnowMe movement and the #StoptheBans movement in 2019.  There is also an anti-abortion rights community, much of it centered on religious groups. Protesters were regularly outside Affiliated Medical Services in 2013.  There has been some anti-abortion violence, including a bomb attack against a Planned Parenthood clinic in April 2012.

Terminology

The abortion debate most commonly relates to the "induced abortion" of an embryo or fetus at some point in a pregnancy, which is also how the term is used in a legal sense. Some also use the term "elective abortion", which is used in relation to a claim to an unrestricted right of a woman to an abortion, whether or not she chooses to have one. The term elective abortion or voluntary abortion describes the interruption of pregnancy before viability at the request of the woman, but not for medical reasons.

Anti-abortion advocates tend to use terms such as "unborn baby", "unborn child", or "pre-born child", and see the medical terms "embryo", "zygote", and "fetus" as dehumanizing. Both "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are examples of terms labeled as political framing: they are terms which purposely try to define their philosophies in the best possible light, while by definition attempting to describe their opposition in the worst possible light. "Pro-choice" implies that the alternative viewpoint is "anti-choice", while "pro-life" implies the alternative viewpoint is "pro-death" or "anti-life". The Associated Press encourages journalists to use the terms "abortion rights" and "anti-abortion".

Context

Free birth control correlates to teenage girls having a fewer pregnancies and fewer abortions. A 2014 New England Journal of Medicine study found such a link.  At the same time, a 2011 study by Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health also found that states with more abortion restrictions have higher rates of maternal death, higher rates of uninsured pregnant women, higher rates of infant and child deaths, higher rates of teen drug and alcohol abuse, and lower rates of cancer screening.

According to a 2017 report from the Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health, states that tried to pass additional constraints on a women's ability to access legal abortions had fewer policies supporting women's health, maternal health and children's health.  These states also tended to resist expanding Medicaid, family leave, medical leave, and sex education in public schools. According to Megan Donovan, a senior policy manager at the Guttmacher Institute, states have legislation seeking to protect a woman's right to access abortion services have the lowest rates of infant mortality in the United States.

History

Legislative history

Play media

Scott Walker talking in April 2012 during recall efforts. Walker's recall election was set for June 5th, and his Equal Pay repeal and other recent legislative actions on abortion and abstinence-only sex education have added fuel to his Democratic opponents' fire. Regardless, he was still polling ahead of both of his main Democratic challengers.

In 1849, the state legislature passed a law that criminalized abortion, making it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion on a woman, no matter the circumstances of her pregnancy. In the 19th century, bans by state legislatures on abortion were about protecting the life of the mother given the number of deaths caused by abortions; state governments saw themselves as looking out for the lives of their citizens.

By 1950, the state legislature would pass a law that stating that a woman who had an abortion or actively sought to have an abortion, regardless of whether she went through with it, was guilty of a criminal offense.

The state was one of 23 states in 2007 to have a detailed abortion-specific informed consent requirement. Georgia and Wisconsin were 2 of the only 22 states with written informed consent materials referring women to  "crisis pregnancy centers" which acknowledged these centers did not support or provide women with abortion related services.

In 2012, Governor Walker and the Republican controlled legislature repealed the Healthy Youth Act, which required schools to provide students scientifically-accurate and age-appropriate information on contraception as one method to help prevent STIs and unplanned births. This earlier law was championed by the leader of the Wisconsin Alliance for Women's Health, with the Executive Director, Sara Finger, declaring it was "an incredible public health victory in the state." However, this was replaced with a requirement for abstinence-only education, in which schools are to teach that "abstinence is the only reliable way to prevent pregnancy and avoid sexually transmitted infections." Specifically, requirements under this law require that students are taught the benefits of and reasons for abstinence, as well as the "positive connection between marriage and parenting."

In 2013, state Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law applied to medication induced abortions in addition to abortion clinics.

Following the passage of a 2013 Wisconsin law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, three Catholic hospital systems in the state intended to deny admitting privileges to abortion providers. Wisconsin's attorney general said this intent violated the Church Amendment of 1973, which prohibits hospitals receiving federal funds from discriminating against a doctor on the basis of whether the doctor provides abortions.

Five bills have sought to outlaw abortion in Wisconsin in 2019. In mid-May 2019, state law banned abortion after week 22. In 2019, Governor Tony Evers vetoed four Republican passed bills that would have limited abortion access. Specifically, the legislature passed a measure requiring abortion physicians to provide information on abortion reversal - a procedure that the scientific community sees as illegitimate and invalid, as it is not based upon medically-sound research. In addition, the legislature passed a bill that would eliminate all government funding for Planned Parenthood, as well as a ban on all abortions based upon the race, sex, or genetic anomaly of the fetus. Evers also vetoed a bill that would sentence doctors to life in prison for failing to provide infants with medical care if they are born alive during a botched abortion attempt. In 2019, the state had a legal 24 hour waiting period before a woman could get an abortion.

Judicial history

The US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester. It effectively made the state's 1849 ban unenforceable.

In 2015, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a decision to strike down the admitting privileges requirement of Act 37, passed in 2013. Admitting privileges require physicians providing abortion to obtain the right to admit patients at local hospitals - although, federal law dictates that no hospital can deny a patient admittance. Wisconsin already had a transfer agreement requirement established, which mandates that all facilities where abortion is performed to have an agreement with a local hospital for the transfer of patients. Most in public health and clinical practice understand admitting privilege requirements - adopted by nine states, including Wisconsin - to be nonessential, and not grounded in evidence-based practice. Further, as argued during the court proceedings, the law would lead to diminished access to abortion within the state, particularly as the law was to go into effect two days after its passage.

After a District Court ordered an immediate temporary injunction, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court granted a hearing of the case. The state's primary argument in defense of the admitting privileges requirement centers on women's health. Specifically, if complications arise, this requirement presumes a continuity of care for the patient. The court's ruling, however, determined that the remarkably low rates of complications associated with abortion, and the state's failure to impose similar requirements on physicians providing riskier procedures rendered these claims moot. Following the 7th U.S. Circuit Court's ruling, the state of Wisconsin petitioned the Supreme Court for review of the case; the Supreme Court chose not to hear the case, leaving the 7th Circuit Court's ruling in place.

Clinic history

Number of abortion clinics in Wisconsin by year.

Between 1982 and 1992, the number of abortion clinics in the state declined by 13, going from 29 in 1982 to 16 in 1992. In 2013, Affiliated Medical Services was located in Milwaukee at 1428 N. Farwell Ave. Women going to the clinic often had to be accompanied as there were protesters outside. In 2014, there were 4 abortion clinics in the state. In 2014, 96% of the counties in the state did not have an abortion clinic. That year, 67% of women in the state aged 15 – 44 lived in a county without an abortion clinic. In March 2016, there were 22 Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. In 2017, there were 21 Planned Parenthood clinics in a state with a population of 1,270,774 women aged 15 – 49 of which 2 offered abortion services.

Statistics

In the period between 1972 and 1974, there were zero recorded illegal abortion deaths in the state. In 1990, there were 577,000 women in the state at risk of an unintended pregnancy. In 2001, Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin did not provide any residence related data regarding abortions performed in the state to the Centers for Disease Control. In 2013, among white women aged 15–19, there were  abortions 570, 200 abortions for black women aged 15–19, 90 abortions for Hispanic women aged 15–19, and 80 abortions for women of all other races. In 2014, 53% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. In 2017, the state had an infant mortality rate of 6.4 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Abortion rights views and activities

Protesters pose with their signs moments before kick off of the Madison WI rally for the Women's March on January 21, 2017.

Organizations

Wisconsin Alliance for Reproductive Health is an organization that supports abortion rights. In May 2019, they were active in trying to overturn Wisconsin's 1849 era abortion ban.

Views

Wisconsin Alliance for Reproductive Health Executive Director Sara Finger said, "Wisconsin is not recognized as having some of the harshest abortion laws, but we're right up there with Texas and some others who do have that reputation."

Activities

On January 27, 2013, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin marked the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade with an event titled  “Our Lives. Our Stories. Our Celebration” at the Majestic Theater in Madison.

In May 2019, women from the state participated in the #YouKnowMe movement. Jeanne Myers, from Wisconsin, was one such woman sharing their stories. She said "I didn't know what I would do with a baby. [...] I was horrified. [...]I had no job. I would have been in no financial position to care for a kid. [...] cried through the whole procedure. [...] I had guilt probably for a year. But you know what? I don't regret it. Because if I hadn't had that procedure when I was young, I would not be where I am today."

Protests

Women from the state participated in marches supporting abortion rights as part of a #StoptheBans movement in May 2019.

Anti-abortion rights view and activities

Activism

Much of the anti-abortion movement in the United States and around the world finds support in the Roman Catholic Church, the Christian right, the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the Church of England, the Anglican Church in North America, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).

Specifically, organizations such as Pro-Life Wisconsin, Wisconsin Right to Life, and the Wisconsin Catholic Conference are actively working to limit or restrict access to abortion access within the state of Wisconsin. They all engage in outreach and education campaigns directed towards the general public, fundraising activities, and resources to churches and Pastors for use in their own ministry. Further, each organization engages in policy and legal efforts to limit access to abortion, whether it is through testimonials before the state legislature on bills related to abortion, or assistance in court cases that challenge existing abortion restrictions.

Protests

Protesters were regularly outside Affiliated Medical Services in 2013. They had also bought a large Clearchannel billboard across the street the clinic. Protesters would often scream, "Abortion is murder!". They would also photograph people coming into and leaving the clinic.

Violence

On April 1, 2012, a bomb exploded on the windowsill of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, resulting in a fire that caused minimal damage.

Footnotes