The Saint Louis-based hospital system will close its "micro-hospital," which opened in Waukesha at the start of 2021.
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Beyoncé takes part in a campaign rally focused on reproductive rights with the Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, at Shell Energy Stadium on Oct. 25, 2024 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris appeared alongside superstar performer Beyoncé on Friday night to encourage voter turnout and reinforce the differences between the two parties on reproductive rights, with just days to go before voting ends.
The rally at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston, Texas, followed months of speculation about whether Beyoncé would support Vice President Harris publicly ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election. The two-hour event featured other celebrities, including Willie Nelson and Jessica Alba, as well as women detailing being denied medical care for pregnancy complications in Texas after its abortion ban went into effect.
Beyoncé, who has won more than 30 Grammy Awards as well as hundreds of others throughout her career, said casting a vote is “one of the most valuable tools” that Americans have to decide the future of the country.
“We are at the precipice of an incredible shift, the brink of history,” Beyoncé said, adding that she wasn’t speaking at the rally as a celebrity or a politician.
“I’m here as a mother,” she said. “A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in. A world where we have the freedom to control our bodies.”
Harris, who is locked in an extremely close race with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, said abortion bans and restrictions implemented during the last two years have been “devastating.”
“We see the horrific reality that women and families face every single day,” Harris said. “The stories are vivid, they are difficult to hear, they are difficult to tell.”
Harris said there are also many stories that women and their families won’t discuss in public about challenges they’ve faced with access to medical care during pregnancy complications.
“An untold number of women and the people who love them, who are silently suffering — women who are being made to feel as though they did something wrong, as though they are criminals, as though they are alone,” Harris said. “And to those women. I say — and I think I speak on behalf of all of us — we see you and we are here with you.”
Harris said if voters give Trump another four years in the Oval Office, he will likely nominate more justices to the Supreme Court, which she argued would have a negative impact on the country.
“If he were reelected, he’d probably get to appoint one, if not two, members to the United States Supreme Court,” Harris said. “At which point Donald Trump will have packed the court with five out of nine justices … who will sit for lifetime appointments; shaping your lives and the lives of generations to come.”
Texas has one of the country’s most restrictive abortion laws, which has led to concerns about its OB-GYN workforce, how the state addresses maternal mortality and testimony before Congress about women having to leave the state to get care for pregnancy complications.
Texas is also where anti-abortion organizations decided to file a federal lawsuit in November 2022 challenging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of medication abortion.
The two-drug regimen, consisting of mifepristone and misoprostol, is currently approved for up to 10 weeks gestation and is used in about 63% of abortions nationwide, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute.
The case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled earlier this year the organizations lacked standing to bring the lawsuit in the first place, but the justices didn’t address the merits of the anti-abortion groups’ arguments.
Harris told reporters on Friday before the rally began that Republican lawmakers in Texas have made the state “ground zero in this fundamental fight for the freedom of women to make decisions about their own body.”
Harris contended that access to reproductive rights, including abortion, is “not just a political debate” or “some theoretical concept.”
“Real harm has occurred in this country, real suffering has occurred,” Harris told reporters. “People die, and it is important to highlight this issue because this is among the most critical issues that the American people will address when they vote for who will be the next president of the United States.”
During Trump’s first term in office, he nominated three Supreme Court justices, who later joined with other conservatives to overturn the constitutional right to abortion established in the 1973 Roe v. Wade case.
The Supreme Court’s ruling two years ago sent “the authority to regulate abortion … to the people and their elected representatives.”
That has led to a hodgepodge of laws with 13 states banning abortion, six states restricting access between six and 12 weeks, five states setting a gestational limit between 15 and 22 weeks, 17 states restricting abortion access after viability and nine states not setting a gestational limit, according to KFF.
Public support for abortion access has outpaced support for restricting access for decades, according to consistent polling from the Pew Research Center.
The most recent survey from May shows that about 63% of Americans want abortion to be legal in most or all cases, while 36% said they believe it should be illegal in most or all cases.
Additional surveying from Pew shows that 67% of Harris supporters believe abortion access is “very important — nearly double the share of Biden voters who said this four years ago, though somewhat lower than the share of midterm Democratic voters who said this in 2022 (74%).
“And about a third of Trump supporters (35%) now say abortion is very important to their vote — 11 points lower than in 2020.”
In addition to playing some role in the presidential election, voters in 10 states — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and South Dakota — will weigh in on abortion access directly through ballot questions.
Congress could supersede any protections or restrictions on abortion access established within states, if the House and Senate ever agree on legislation and a future president signs it into law.
Republicans are slightly favored to gain control of the Senate for the next two years following the election, while control of the House is considered a toss-up, as is the presidential race.
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The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which was issued electronically, is seen on June 24, 2022 in Washington, D.C. The court’s decision overturned the landmark Roe v Wade case and erases a federal right to an abortion. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
This is one in a series of States Newsroom reports on the major policy issues in the presidential race.
WASHINGTON — This year’s election marks the first time voters are casting ballots for president since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion and made reproductive rights a pivotal issue for many voters.
Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump have spoken about reproductive rights and abortion access numerous times during the last few months.
Trump’s stance has evolved during his bid for the White House. He now contends he wouldn’t sign legislation implementing nationwide abortion restrictions and wants regulation left up to the states.
Harris has consistently said a nationwide law guaranteeing access would ensure the choice is left up to women, not politicians.
“I pledge to you, when Congress passes a bill to put back in place the protections of Roe v. Wade, as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law,” Harris said during the September presidential debate.
Trump patted himself on the back during the same debate for nominating three justices to the Supreme Court who later ruled with their conservative colleagues that the Constitution didn’t provide the privacy rights that two former high court rulings said insulated women’s choices about abortion.
“I did something that nobody thought was possible,” Trump said about nominating the three justices. “The states are now voting. What she says is an absolute lie. And as far as the abortion ban, no, I’m not in favor of (an) abortion ban. But it doesn’t matter because this issue has now been taken over by the states.”
Harris had just said that Trump would sign a nationwide abortion ban if elected and cited Project 2025, the blueprint for a second Trump administration released by the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation. Trump and his campaign have repeatedly tried to distance themselves from the document and many of its proposals.
Many politicians have misrepresented the Supreme Court’s ruling two years ago as sending abortion regulation back to the states. What the conservative justices wrote was that ending Roe v. Wade meant the “authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”
That, of course, includes Congress and the president.
Trump’s stance on abortion hasn’t always been linear or consistent. He told Republicans earlier this year that they should avoid discussing the topic in order to win elections, while also courting organizations that view him as one avenue to ending abortion outright.
Trump got himself into hot water with several anti-abortion organizations and conservative Republicans in April when he announced he didn’t want Congress to take action on a nationwide law.
Trump had previously said he would support a 16-week nationwide ban. He reiterated in his April announcement that he supported exceptions to state abortion bans in cases of rape, incest and the life of the pregnant patient.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser released a statement following Trump’s April announcement that she was “deeply disappointed.”
“Saying the issue is ‘back to the states’ cedes the national debate to the Democrats who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy,” Dannenfelser wrote. “If successful, they will wipe out states’ rights.”
About a month later, in May, Trump, Dannenfelser, President of the Family Research Council Tony Perkins and South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham had a “terrific meeting,” according to a statement released afterward.
Then, this summer, Trump muddied the waters on his abortion stance yet more, when he spoke to an organization in June that describes abortion as the “greatest atrocity facing” the United States that should be “eradicated entirely.”
“These are going to be your years because you’re going to make a comeback like just about no other group,” Trump said to The Danbury Institute’s inaugural Life & Liberty Forum. “I know what’s happening. I know where you’re coming from and where you’re going. And I’ll be with you side by side.”
Then, most recently, Trump posted on social media during the vice presidential debate in early October that he would veto any nationwide abortion restrictions.
Trump wrote in all capital letters that he “would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it, because it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters (the will of the people!).”
Trump added that he didn’t support access to abortion during the seventh, eight or ninth months of pregnancy, nor did he support killing babies, which is already illegal.
During 2021, about 93% of abortions took place within the first 13 weeks of gestation, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by the Pew Research Center.
Another 6% of abortions took place between 14 and 20 weeks with the remaining 1% taking place after 21 weeks gestation, according to the data.
“Almost half of individuals who obtained an abortion after 20 weeks did not suspect they were pregnant until later in pregnancy, and other barriers to care included lack of information about where to access an abortion, transportation difficulties, lack of insurance coverage and inability to pay for the procedure,” according to analysis from KFF Health.
Harris has repeatedly criticized Trump for celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision to end Roe v. Wade and said during the presidential debate that state restrictions have harmed women in innumerable ways.
“Trump abortion bans that make no exception even for rape and incest,” Harris said. “Understand what that means — a survivor of a crime, a violation to their body, does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body next. That is immoral.
“And one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government, and Donald Trump certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.”
Harris has called for Democrats to eliminate the Senate’s legislative filibuster to ease the passage of a bill that would restore nationwide abortion protections.
That Senate rule requires at least 60 lawmakers vote to advance legislation before that bill can move on to a simple majority passage vote. It is different than the so-called talking filibuster, when one senator, or a group of like-minded lawmakers, talk on the floor for hours to delay a vote.
Democrats would have to maintain their majority in the Senate against long odds to actually carve out an exception to the legislative filibuster, in order to pass a bill restoring Roe v. Wade. Democrats would also need to regain control of the House of Representatives.
A divided Congress, or a few Democrats objecting to rule changes in the Senate, would hinder Harris’ efforts to sign nationwide abortion protections.
Democrats tried to pass legislation through the Senate that would have provided nationwide protections for abortion when they had unified control of government in 2022, but were blocked by the filibuster.
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Arizona independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema later introduced a bipartisan bill that would have had a similar result, but it wasn’t scheduled for a floor vote.
The legislation of two years ago likely would again fail to advance if Democrats sweep in the November elections, unless they carved out an exception in the Senate filibuster.
Harris’ and Trump’s stance on abortion access will likely play a role in determining which candidate wins the Electoral College in crucial swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Democrats are optimistic that abortion access ballot questions in 10 states will bolster Harris’ chances through increased voter turnout and higher spending by reproductive rights organizations.
While many of the referendums are in solidly blue or red states, the proposals in Arizona and Florida could affect turnout and motivation.
Louis Jacobson, senior columnist at Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, wrote earlier this month that a key question on Election Day will be whether “abortion-rights advocates extend their perfect 7-for-7 record since Roe v. Wade was overturned.”
Voters will decide on numerous other ballot questions as well, including recreational cannabis, increases in the minimum wage and ranked-choice voting.
In an earlier post about the abortion ballot questions, Jacobson and Samantha Putterman wrote that “(e)very post-Roe measure has been on the ballot during a relatively low turnout election—either the November midterm, a primary ballot, or an off-year election.”
“Any measure that makes the ballot in 2024 will face voters in November of a presidential year, when turnout is far higher,” they wrote. “This has the potential to hurt abortion rights backers, because moderate and liberal voters have recently flexed their electoral muscles more when turnout is low.”
Public opinion polls conducted by the Pew Research Center for the past three decades have consistently shown support for keeping abortion legal outpacing support for making the procedure illegal in most or all cases.
The 2024 survey showed that 63% of people want abortion legal in most or all cases while 36% believe it should be illegal in all or most cases.
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The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June 2022 ended federal abortion rights. (Sofia Resnick/States Newsroom)
Editor’s note: This five-day series explores the priorities of voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as they consider the upcoming presidential election. With the outcome expected to be close, these “swing states” may decide the future of the country.
Dr. Kristin Lyerly’s placenta detached from her uterus when she was 17 weeks pregnant with her fourth son in 2007. Her doctor in Madison, Wisconsin, gave the devastated recent medical school graduate one option: to deliver and bury her dead child. But she requested a dilation and evacuation abortion procedure, knowing it would be less invasive and risky than being induced. And she couldn’t fathom the agony of holding her tiny dead baby.
But Lyerly’s doctor declined, giving her a direct window into the many ways Americans lack real choice when it comes to their reproductive health decisions. At the time of this miscarriage, Lyerly was getting a master’s degree in public health before beginning her residency. She was able to get a D&E at the same hospital by a different doctor. As an OB-GYN, she soon would learn how much abortion is stigmatized and limited throughout the country, but also regularly sought after and sometimes medically necessary, including among her many conservative Catholic patients in northeastern Wisconsin.
And then, on June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights, prompting states such as Wisconsin to resurrect dormant abortion bans from the 19th and 20th centuries. Lyerly’s job changed overnight. She stopped working as an OB-GYN in Sheboygan and moved her practice to Minnesota. She became a plaintiff in a lawsuit over an 1849 Wisconsin feticide law being interpreted as an abortion ban, which has since been blocked.
When a congressional seat opened up in a competitive Wisconsin district this year, the 54-year-old mother of four joined the post-Dobbs wave of women running for office to restore reproductive rights, which this election cycle includes another OB-GYN and a patient denied abortion care. Lyerly’s decision to run is emblematic of the nationwide backlash against the Dobbs decision, which altered the reproductive health care landscape, with providers, patients and advocates turning to the ballot box to change the laws to restore and broaden access.
Wisconsin is among seven swing states expected to determine the country’s next president and federal leaders. And in many ways they’re being viewed as referendums on how much the right to have an abortion can move the needle in a tight presidential election.
“What we’ve seen in every election since the Dobbs decision is that abortion is at top of mind for voters — and it’s not just helping voters decide who or what to vote for. It’s actually a turnout driver,” said Ryan Stitzlein, vice president of political and government relations at national lobbying group Reproductive Freedom for All. The group is investing in down-ballot races in conservative districts such as Lyerly’s, buoyed by cash and momentum from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ reproductive-rights-focused campaign.
Anti-abortion money is also flowing through the swing states, led by lobbying groups Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Women Speak Out PAC. Some of their messaging, adopted by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and many GOP candidates, often paints Democrats as champions of infanticide, focusing on the rarest and most controversial type of abortions, those performed in the third trimester.
But aside from that rhetoric, many Republican candidates have been quiet on an issue that for years motivated their staunchest supporters.
SBA Pro-Life America declined an interview for this story but shared a press release outlining the organization’s strategy trying to reach 10 million voters in Montana, Ohio and all of the battleground states except for Nevada. The group endorsed 28 House candidates total this cycle, and a fifth of them are in North Carolina. One of North Carolina’s endorsed candidates in a toss-up race is Republican GOP challenger Laurie Buckhout, who does not mention her abortion stance on her campaign website, and did not return a request for comment.
“Our field team is talking to persuadable and low propensity pro-life voters to urge them to cast their votes against the party that endorses abortion in the seventh, eighth and ninth months,” said SBA’s national field team director Patricia Miles in the press statement.
But throughout this election cycle, polls in the swing states have shown bipartisan support for abortion rights, especially when voters are educated about what abortion bans do. Voters in more than half of the states expected to determine the presidential winner have, to varying degrees, lost access to abortion. And abortion-rights activists across these states told States Newsroom they are determined to protect that access, or to get it back.
In Arizona, the Dobbs decision resurrected a Civil War-era ban that allowed abortions only to save a pregnant patient’s life.
Legislators repealed the law, but abortion-rights supporters fought for more certainty. This fall, Arizonans will vote on a proposed ballot measure that would protect access until fetal viability, around 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Now, two of the judges who upheld the abortion ban — Justices Clint Bolick and Kathryn King — are up for reelection, in races infused with national cash by groups such as RFA and Planned Parenthood. Also on the ballot is Proposition 137, which would give lifetime appointments to state judges. The Republican-initiated measure has garnered controversy in part because it is retroactive to this year’s election, so if approved, any retention bids would be nullified even if the majority votes to unseat the judge.
Ballot organizers turned in more than 800,000 signatures, double the required number, and overcame opponents’ legal challenges to qualify the abortion-rights ballot measure, Proposition 139. Abortion is legal up to 15 weeks of pregnancy, but there are many state restrictions that the Arizona Abortion Access Act would eliminate, such as a ban on any abortions sought for fetal genetic abnormalities and a blocked law from 2021 granting personhood status to fertilized eggs.
This month, ProPublica reported on the deaths in 2022 of two Georgia women who suffered rare complications after they obtained mifepristone and misoprostol for early-term medication abortions. Both were trying to navigate a new state law that banned abortions at about six weeks of pregnancy and threatened medical providers with up to a decade in prison.
In one case, doctors at an Atlanta-area hospital refused for 20 hours to perform a routine dilation and curettage, a D&C, to clear the patient’s uterus when her body hadn’t expelled all the fetal tissue. In the other, a woman who had ordered the pills online suffered days of pain at home, fearful of seeking medical care. Both women left children behind.
Georgia’s law permits abortion if the patient’s life is at risk, but medical providers have said the law’s language is unclear, tying their hands and threatening the health of patients who have high-risk pregnancies.
Their cases, which a state medical review committee found to be “preventable,” have galvanized activists in the state.
Harris spoke at length about the women, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, at a recent campaign event in Atlanta. She blamed their deaths on Georgia’s law, calling it “the Trump abortion ban,” because the former president appointed three justices he’d promised would overturn Roe v. Wade.
“This is a health care crisis, and Donald Trump is the architect of this crisis,” Harris said. “Understand what a law like this means: Doctors have to wait until the patient is at death’s door before they take action. … You’re saying that good policy, logical policy, moral policy, humane policy is about saying that a health care provider will only start providing that care when you’re about to die?”
Trump has not commented on the deaths. He has repeatedly said this year that abortion access should be left to the states. He has dismissed the idea of a federal abortion ban, but during the presidential debate, he refused to say whether he would veto such legislation.
At a recent rally in North Carolina, Trump addressed “our great women” (a demographic he’s trailing among), saying, “you will no longer be thinking about abortion, because it is now where it always had to be, with the states, and with the vote of the people.”
Abortion was a driving concern in this spring’s qualifying process for Georgia’s 2024 legislative elections — the first opportunity for aspiring state lawmakers to jump on the ballot in response to their state’s severe abortion restrictions.
Melita Easters, the executive director and founding chair of Georgia WIN List, which endorses Democratic women who support abortion rights, was already calling this year’s general election “Roevember” back when President Joe Biden was still the party’s nominee.
But Easters told States Newsroom that having Harris on the ticket instead has elevated the issue of reproductive freedom even more and “has breathed new life into down-ballot campaigns.” Easters said she is especially encouraged after a Democratic state House candidate in Alabama who ran on abortion rights flipped a Huntsville seat during a special election in March.
Michigan was one of the earliest states post-Dobbs to show that abortion rights could be a strong election-winning issue.
Months after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Michiganders overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to protect abortion rights in the state constitution; reelected Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who vowed to prioritize reproductive freedom; and voted for Democratic majorities in both chambers, giving the party a legislative trifecta for the first time in 40 years. In 2023, the legislature repealed a 1931 abortion ban that was still on the books and passed the Reproductive Health Act, expanding abortion access in the state.
This year, state and national abortion-rights groups have campaigned in toss-up congressional districts across Michigan, warning that a federal ban would supersede the state’s protections.
State judicial races, meanwhile, have attracted millions of dollars, as they could determine partisan control of the Michigan Supreme Court. Democrats secured a slim 4-3 majority on the state Supreme Court in 2020 after Republican-nominated justices controlled the court for most of the last few decades.
In Nevada, abortion remains legal through 24 weeks and beyond for specific health reasons. In 2023, the state’s Democratic-led legislature passed a law shielding patients and providers from out-of-state investigations related to abortion care; it was signed by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo.
Seeking to cement these rights in the state constitution, reproductive health advocates mobilized a ballot initiative campaign, which they hope will drive voter turnout that would affect the presidential and down-ballot races. Constitutional amendments proposed through an initiative petition must be passed by voters twice, so if voters approve Question 6 in November, they will have to approve it again in 2026.
In the state’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen currently edges Republican Sam Brown, who has had inconsistent positions on abortion and reproductive rights but opposes the abortion-rights measure.
National anti-abortion groups Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Students for Life of America have notably not focused on Nevada in their campaign strategies.
In North Carolina many Democrats are campaigning in opposition to a 12-week abortion ban that the Republican-majority legislature passed last year after overriding Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto.
In a high-profile race for governor, Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein faces Republican opponent Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who has previously said he believes “there is no compromise on abortion,” according to NC Newsline. The lieutenant governor is now facing calls to withdraw from the race over comments made on a pornography website years ago, and Stein has started racking up endorsements from prominent state Republicans.
Iliana Santillan, a political organizer who supports abortion rights, has focused on mobilizing Latinos, a growing voting bloc in the state. The executive director of progressive nonprofit El Pueblo and its political sister group La Fuerza NC told States Newsroom she’s talked to many young women motivated to secure their own reproductive rights, including her college-age daughter. She said the Latinx community faces additional reproductive care barriers such as language and transportation, with undocumented immigrants scared to cross state lines without a driver’s license.
Santillan also said there’s a misconception that all Latinos are against abortion because they’re Catholic, when in reality opposition to abortion skews among older voters.
“With older folks, the messaging that we’ve tested that has worked is: ‘We don’t want politicians to have a say in what we do with our bodies,’” Santillan said.
Pennsylvania, with its 19 electoral votes, is the largest swing state and considered essential to win the White House.
In a poll conducted this month by Spotlight PA and MassINC Polling Group, abortion ranked as the fifth most-important concern in the presidential race for likely voters, with 49% naming it as among their top issues.
The issue is far more important to Democrats, however, with 85% calling it a top issue compared with 17% of Republicans. Among those who aren’t registered with either major party, 49% called it a top issue.
In 2022, voters surprised pundits by sending enough Democrats to the state House to flip it blue. Voters were responding to the Dobbs decision, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro told Pennsylvania Capital-Star at a recent Harris campaign event.
Shapiro also won in 2022, and so far his administration has supported over-the-counter birth control pills and ended the state’s contract with a network of anti-abortion counseling centers. He said his administration would not defend a current state law that prohibits state Medicaid funding from being used for abortions.
Abortion isn’t protected under Pennsylvania’s state constitution, but it remains legal up to 24 weeks’ gestation, and clinics there have seen an influx of out-of-state patients.
After more than a year without abortion access, reproductive health clinics in Wisconsin resumed abortion services in September 2023, shortly after a judge ruled that the 1849 state law that had widely been interpreted as an abortion ban, applied to feticide and not abortion. A state Supreme Court race a few months earlier saw Justice Janet Protasiewicz win in a landslide after campaigning on reproductive freedom.
Seven months later when Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher announced his resignation, Lyerly threw her hat in the ring, running as the only Democrat in the 8th District. She now faces businessman Tony Wied. Although in the past it was considered a swing district, it has leaned conservative in recent election cycles. With the redrawn maps and national support, Lyerly said it’s a competitive race.
“We have the potential to really fix, not just reproductive health care, but health care,” Lyerly told States Newsroom. “Bring the stories of our patients forward and help our colleagues understand, build those coalitions and help to gain consensus that’s going to drive forward health care reform in this country.”
Wied’s campaign website does not mention abortion or his policy proposals related to health care, though the words “Trump-endorsed” appear prominently and abundantly throughout the site. Wied hasn’t said much about the issue beyond it should be a state issue, but the two are scheduled to debate this Friday night. His campaign declined an interview.
Currently the only OB-GYNs who serve in Congress oppose abortion. If Lyerly wins in November, she would not only change that (potentially alongside Minnesota Sen. Kelly Morrison) but also could help flip party control in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Most Wisconsin voters oppose criminalizing abortion before fetal viability, according to a poll this year by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation.
Patricia McFarland, 76, knows what it’s like to live without abortion access. For more than 50 years, the retired college teacher kept her pre-Roe abortion a secret, having grown up in a conservative Irish Catholic family like many of her suburban Milwaukee neighbors.
McFarland told States Newsroom she has been politically active most of her life, but the Dobbs ruling dredged up the physical and emotional trauma from the illegal procedure she had alone in Mexico City. Now, McFarland rarely leaves home without her “Roe Roe Roe Your Vote” button, engaging anyone who will talk to her about the dangers of criminalizing pregnancy.
The mother and grandmother said she’s been canvassing and doing informational sessions with her activist group the PERSISTers, as well as the League of Women Voters. As she has warned fellow Wisconsities about the federal power over their reproductive freedom, she said the enthusiasm for abortion rights in her state is palpable.
“For women my age,” McFarland said, “we don’t want our grandchildren to lose their ability to decide when to become a mother.”
Georgia Recorder’s Jill Nolin contributed to this report.
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