MILWAUKEE – Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has announced that abortion services will resume at their only clinic in Wisconsin not currently providing them, their Sheboygan location, on December 28, 2023.
The organization’s Milwaukee and Madison clinics have been providing abortions again in the state since September 18, following a ruling by a Dane County judge that the current law on the books regarding abortions, which dates back to 1849, refers to feticide rather than the medical procedure of abortion. Judge Diane Schlipper wrote in her ruling that the law referred only to prohibiting someone from attacking a woman in an attempt to kill her unborn child.
That ruling was reaffirmed earlier in December, after Joel Urmanski, the Republican district attorney in Sheboygan County, asked Schlipper to reconsider her ruling. Urmanski has vowed to prosecute any abortion providers in his jurisdiction under the 1849 law, and is one of the people named in Attorney General Josh Kaul’s lawsuit challenging it.
“With patients and community as our priority, we are excited to resume abortion services at our Sheboygan health center,” President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin Tanya Atkinson told our news partners at TMJ4 News. “Being able to provide this essential care at another health center is important to the health and well-being of Wisconsin women and people across the gender spectrum who need care.”
Reproductive Justice Action Milwaukee advocate Blake Jones told WTMJ in September that there’s still a long way to go to restore abortion access in Wisconsin to the state it was in during the era of Roe v. Wade.
“Our next steps are to expand abortion access in Wisconsin. Right now, even after [the 1849 law] gets overturned it would default to a 1983 law where telehealth is not available for getting a consultation. There is no rural access so we want to create rural access. Finally, get rid of the mandatory waiting period.”
Appointments at the Sheboygan clinic are available to be booked starting as of Monday, December 18th both online and by phone.
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