MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Democrats are renewing a push to protect access to contraception in state law as battles over reproductive rights continue in the Republican-controlled state Legislature and in the courts.
Senate Minority Leader Diane Hesselbein and other Democratic state lawmakers on Thursday called on Republicans to pass the Right to Contraception Act, which would guarantee legal access to birth control.
“Birth control is essential health care,” Hesselbein said. “There is simply no good reason to leave its access in limbo as my Republican colleagues continue to do time and time again.”
Republicans who control the state Legislature have previously rejected similar proposals from Democrats, and the latest push is unlikely to gain any traction as the legislative session draws to a close.
Julaine Appling, president of the prominent anti-abortion group Wisconsin Family Action, said state resources would be put to better use at pregnancy resource centers.
“We don’t think there’s a right to contraception,” Appling said, adding that her group opposes any form of birth control that would cause an abortion.
Wisconsin Family Action has lobbied in support of a bill that would direct $1 million in state-funded grants to pregnancy resource centers each year. The measure passed the state Senate in a vote along party lines in October, but it was never scheduled for a vote by the Assembly, effectively killing it.
Pregnancy resource centers, sometimes referred to as crisis pregnancy centers, offer education to expecting mothers and also provide necessary items such as diapers, car seats and baby food. However, many such centers have come under fire for using deceptive practices to discourage women from seeking abortions.
For more than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade decision in June 2022, Wisconsin women seeking abortions were forced to travel out of state for the procedure. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin stopped offering abortion services at its clinics immediately after the decision for fear of an 1849 state law that conservatives interpreted as outlawing abortion. Clinics only resumed offering abortions in September 2023, after a Dane County judge ruled that the law did not apply to abortions carried out by medical professionals. That lawsuit is currently pending an appeal to the state Supreme Court.
