Planned Parenthood announced Thursday that it will resume offering abortions in Wisconsin next week after a judge ruled that an 1849 law that seemingly banned the procedure actually didn’t apply to abortions, the Associated Press reports.
The resumption of abortions on Monday at clinics in Milwaukee and Madison comes as the lawsuit challenging the state law continues in county court. It is expected to eventually reach the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which flipped to liberal control on Aug. 1.
Abortion clinics across the state stopped offering abortions following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022. Until then, Wisconsin’s decades-old statutes — interpreted to outlaw abortion in all cases except to save a mother’s life — were effectively nullified by the 1973 Roe ruling providing a right to abortion nationwide.
A divided federal government has ensured that there won’t be a nationwide ban or legalization immediately, and most states with liberal governments have taken steps to try to protect abortion access.
Democrats in Wisconsin, including Gov. Tony Evers, used abortion access as a central focus of their reelection victories in 2022. State Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz, whose win in April gave liberals the majority for the first time in 15 years, ran as a supporter of abortion rights. Evers hailed Planned Parenthood’s decision to resume abortions in a recent press release.
“I’ve been clear from the beginning that I would fight to restore reproductive freedom in our state with every power and every tool we have, and I’ve spent every day over the last year doing just that,” said Gov. Evers. “Today’s announcement from Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin as a result of our lawsuit regarding Wisconsin’s criminal abortion ban means Wisconsinites will once again be able to access vital reproductive health care and abortion services without exception for the first time since June of last year. This is critically important news for Wisconsin women and patients across our state who, for a year now, have been unable to access the health care they need when and where they need it.
“But I also want to be clear today: I will never let up. And we must not let up. Our fight to restore the same reproductive rights and freedoms Wisconsinites had up until the day the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe must continue,” Gov. Evers continued. “I will keep fighting like hell every day until Wisconsinites have the right to make their own health care decisions without interference from politicians who don’t know anything about their lives, their family, or their circumstances.”
