Voters mark their primary election ballots at Second Presbyterian Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, on March 3, 2026. This year’s statewide ballot measures are written, on average, at a graduate-school reading level, according to a new report. (Photo by John Sykes/Arkansas Advocate)
This year’s statewide ballot measures are written, on average, at a graduate-school reading level, according to a new report.
The readability of 2026’s ballot questions — which ask voters to weigh in on issues as varied as abortion, property taxes, voter ID and firearms — varies by state, political data tracking nonprofit Ballotpedia found in its newest Ballot Measure Readability Report.
The report analyzes the level of education voters would need to understand the titles and summaries of the measures put before them. Because ballot measures are often lengthy and full of legal language, states write shorter titles to be published on the ballot for voters to read.
Many of this year’s ballot measures don’t include summaries to supplement the titles. And many voters don’t read beyond a measure’s title before deciding how to vote, Ballotpedia researchers note.
This year, 164 measures have been or will be on the ballot across 40 states. The titles average a reading level requiring 17 years of education, which corresponds to a first-year graduate student. The summaries average a reading level requiring 15 years of education. About 42% of the U.S. adult population ages 25-54 have a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to the most recently available data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Title readability ranges from a fifth-grade level for an Idaho question asking voters to choose an official state gun to a 48th-grade level for a Colorado constitutional amendment that would establish a right to hunt and fish, Ballotpedia found. No formal education level corresponds to a 48th-grade level, but that rating indicates an extremely advanced language structure.
“The most significant factor driving readability differences isn’t the type or topic of the ballot measure, but which state it’s in,” said Ryan Byrne, managing editor of Ballotpedia’s ballots team, in a statement.
Kentucky, Massachusetts and Tennessee had the lowest average title readability grade level, at 10 years of education, while Colorado had the highest at 33 years, followed by Hawaii at 31 years and Nevada at 26, according to the report.
Research has found voters are more likely to skip ballot questions that have more complex language.
About half of states have enacted laws designed to make ballot measure language easier to read. Earlier this year, Maryland enacted a law requiring ballot questions to be written in plain and clear language. Last year, Arkansas required ballot titles to be written at no more than an eighth-grade level.
But still, the average readability score for state ballot measures since 2017, when Ballotpedia began tracking it, is about 18 years of education, or the equivalent of a second-year graduate student.
This year, Kansas had the longest ballot question title, at 927 words for a constitutional amendment that would have authorized the election of state Supreme Court justices and abolished an existing nominating commission. Voters defeated it in August.
Alaska will have the shortest title, at just five words, for a measure to amend state law to allow only U.S. citizens to vote in elections.
Ballotpedia uses two formulas to calculate readability, which includes looking at the number of syllables, words and sentences in a text.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul is facing Republican Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney in the race for Wisconsin Attorney General. (Official candidate photos)
As Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul and Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney face off again this year in a rematch of their 2022 race, the issues shaping the campaigns are different than they were four years ago.
Kaul, a Democrat, is running for his third term as attorney general after two years in which he joined other state attorneys general in suing the administration of President Donald Trump more than 70 times. Those lawsuits have included challenges to Trump’s efforts to end birthright citizenship, restrict healthcare access for transgender youth, freeze federal funding and make last-minute changes to federal voting rules.
“Unfortunately we’re in a place where protecting the freedoms of Wisconsinites, in significant part, means standing up to the federal government,” Kaul told the Cap Times.
In comments on the campaign trail, Kaul has said standing up to overreach from the White House is one of the most important roles he can fill at the moment.
“We have consistently fought back, and we have won case after case, and what that has meant is that those funds either are not illegally conditioned or they’re not frozen or ultimately cut,” Kaul said of Trump administration changes to federally funded programs. “Instead they can come to our communities and support critical programs in Wisconsin.”
Toney has argued that Kaul has been distracted from his job as top lawyer for the state by federal fights with the president and accuses Kaul of being too partisan for constantly challenging Trump.
“Unfortunately, what we’ve seen from the attorney general is it depends on who is in the White House, who’s in the governor’s office when he makes those types of decisions,” about joining federal lawsuits, Toney said when the two debated on WISN’s UpFront earlier this month.
Toney has pointed out that when Kaul first came into office, he was critical of former Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel’s lawsuits against the Obama administration.
“He campaigned against all of the political lawsuits when he first ran, and now that’s effectively what he’s running his entire campaign on is those lawsuits where he’s putting politics over public safety,” Toney said.
But in an election cycle in which Trump’s record low popularity is threatening to kneecap Republican chances, Kaul has countered by saying Toney wouldn’t do anything to protect Wisconsinites from Trump’s actions.
During the debate, Toney was pressed on what, if any, lawsuits he would have joined. Toney said he would have signed on to a lawsuit against West Virginia’s ban on transgender girls playing sports.
“One of the federal lawsuits I would have joined was out of West Virginia to protect women and girls sports that the attorney general failed to stand up and protect,” Toney said.
Kaul said Toney was “ducking saying if he’ll stand up to Donald Trump.”
In 2022, the two men ran shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and abortion was a major issue. Kaul had brought a lawsuit seeking to overturn the state’s 1849 abortion ban. In the years since, the Wisconsin Supreme Court sided with Kaul in that lawsuit, restoring abortion access for Wisconsinites. Toney argued in the 2022 race that Kaul’s lawsuit was a “stunt” but has said he wouldn’t try to change the state’s abortion policy if elected.
Toney has previously said he supports the state’s current 20-week limit on abortions and tied the issue to Republican efforts to restrict access to gender-affirming care for transgender people and limit the ability of trans kids to play sports. In an interview with Wisconsin Watch, he tied his beliefs on abortion to a fight over trans locker room access in the New Richmond school district that has become a frequent GOP campaign reference this year.
“We have five-month, or 20-week, protections in the law right now,” Toney said. “I’m not advocating for any changes to that, and if there is going to be any change, that needs to be something that’s voted on by the people and not decided on by politicians in Madison. We know how difficult this decision can be for women and girls and their families, and we need to make sure here in Wisconsin that we’re creating a supportive environment for women and girls that I hope life may be the choice that they decide to make. And that support has to extend beyond that as well and making sure that we’re protecting women and girls’ private spaces, bathrooms, locker rooms and sports. And we’ve seen the attorney general has failed to stand up in New Richmond, Wisconsin, where we’ve seen the school district allowing biological boys in the girls bathrooms.”
The 2022 race was also much closer to the racial justice protests of 2020, the pandemic-era increase in crime rates and the subsequent backlash against proposals to reassess police authority. Toney is running with the support of county sheriffs and police unions from across the state, but with crime at its lowest level in more than a decade, and the George Floyd protests six years in the past, the issue is not as much of a flashpoint statewide.
This year, Toney has criticized Kaul for an increase in homicides since he first took office in 2019.
“If we want to talk about crime data we’re seeing under this attorney general’s watch since he’s taken over, homicides are up over 30% in Wisconsin. We’ve seen on his watch record drug deaths,” Toney said.
Meanwhile, Kaul has blamed Toney for a recent increase in violent crime in Fond du Lac County.
“We’ve been making important progress on crime statewide,” Kaul said. “Crime overall is at its lowest number in decades, and violent crime is the lowest number since 2011, but we also have more work to do.
Under the Trump administration, the White House has often focused heavily on allegations of election fraud and aggressively stepping up immigration enforcement — including in Wisconsin where the federal government has sought to obtain the private information of Wisconsin voters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement has made record numbers of arrests.
Toney has previously supported both efforts.
In an interview with Wisconsin Watch, he said the state needs to do more to root out non-citizens who are registered to vote — an issue that Republicans have repeatedly raised without much evidence.
“We need to have a similar process that reviews noncitizens that could be on our voter rolls,” he said. “We have people that are lawfully in the country that are noncitizens, whether it’s for work or school, that may get a driver’s license or an ID card, and we don’t know what that problem could be because there’s no process in place to review it. And that’s where I’d like to see a similar process that we use for felons for that noncitizen process, just to make sure that people have confidence in those results. And if somebody is doing that, that they’re being prosecuted.”
Toney has focused on delays in testing at the state’s crime laboratories, which the attorney general is responsible for managing. Crime lab backlogs have often been a major issue in Wisconsin’s attorney general races. Kaul was first elected in 2018 after a controversy over a backlog of untested sexual assault kits.
Toney has pointed to data that shows it’s taking longer for the state labs to test DNA evidence and blamed Kaul for the slowdown, saying he’s “passing the buck” on his responsibilities.
Kaul has blamed the Republican-led Legislature for failing to provide proper funding to fully staff the labs. In the 2023-25 state budget, Kaul requested 16 additional crime lab positions while the final budget granted him three. In the most recent budget signed into law last summer, Kaul requested 19 additional crime lab staffers and received none.
Throughout the year, the criminal justice issue drawing the most public attention has been the increased scrutiny of law enforcement’s use of Flock license plate reading cameras. The AI-powered cameras are able to track the movement of people and vehicles through communities, drawing complaints that their use is an invasion of privacy and a violation of people’s rights.
Both Kaul and Toney have said the cameras can be useful, but that there need to be guardrails on their use.
“It’s clear that we need more action from the Legislature and the governor’s office, and until then local municipalities are the ones that are having to make these decisions with local sheriffs and chiefs that are having to maintain that public trust,” Toney said, pointing to a homicide case he’s working on in which the cameras were used to identify a suspect.
Kaul said the cameras have been helpful in finding missing persons, but the technology should not be misused.
“I want to make sure there’s a limit on the disclosure of data, so it’s being limited by law enforcement. I don’t want to see this going to private entities. And then there should be regular auditing in place and punishments if folks are misusing the technology,” Kaul said.
Every four years, the race for attorney general is largely overshadowed by the race for governor. In most cycles, the party that wins the governor’s race also wins the attorney general’s race.
The last time the two races diverged was in 2006 when Wisconsin elected Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle and Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen.
In 2022, Toney performed better than Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels, earning about 30,000 more votes, but still losing narrowly.
“I’m running my own race from when I got into this back in October of 2025,” Toney told PBS Wisconsin. “I talked about the forensic testing failures, the fentanyl epidemic and how partisan our attorney general has become. I mean, we have driven home issues that affect people in all 72 counties. And that’s what I’ve been focused on, is what our Department of Justice can do to help protect everybody in Wisconsin by putting public safety over politics.”
Kaul acknowledges he’s been elected by thin margins in two nail-biter elections, but is confident his record will be enough to carry him to victory again.
“The results tend to be fairly close, but in Wisconsin we have a lot of close elections, and so sometimes those small differences can make a big difference in the outcome,” Kaul told PBS. “But I’m running based on my record and my time as AG, and the focus can be different. My top priority as attorney general has been public safety, and we’ve made significant progress on really important public safety issues.”
A National Institutes of Health researcher's lab jacket, embroidered with the NIH logo with blue chevron detail. (Photo courtesy NIH)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday establishing a Women’s Health Division within the National Institutes of Health.
The new division is set to work with the agency’s existing Office of Research on Women’s Health, which was established in 1990 and “has served as the focal point for women’s health research at NIH,” according to the NIH website.
The White House said first lady Melania Trump was involved in formulating and leading work on the order, which also creates a White House Women’s Health Task Force that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles will co-chair.
The order is meant to “strengthen research, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care for women and girls throughout every stage of life,” according to a White House fact sheet.
The order says it “is the policy of the United States to prioritize translating research into improved clinical care that benefits women and girls through a comprehensive approach to women’s health that recognizes evolving health needs from infancy, childhood, and adolescence through pregnancy, midlife, menopause, and aging, and supports timely, stage-specific prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care.”
The order does not mention research into contraception or reproductive rights. The Food and Drug Administration is conducting an ongoing safety review into abortion medication.
Reshaping NIH
The initiative came just two weeks ahead of the midterms, as the GOP vies to maintain its razor-thin majority in the U.S. House and Senate. The order also followed many other announcements on new projects by the administration in the days leading up to Election Day on Nov. 3.
The Trump administration has sought to reshape NIH to align with its political priorities and has sought to cut its funding, prompting pushback from Congress. NIH, the country’s largest research agency, is housed under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“Today, we’re taking historic action to promote women’s health through all phases of life,” Trump said during a signing ceremony at the White House Rose Garden alongside the first lady.
“Despite amazing advances in medical science, many diseases and conditions that disproportionately affect women remain chronically understudied,” the president added.
The first lady touted the effort as establishing a “new ambition, transforming hardship and pain into scientific discovery, effective treatments and lasting cures.”
Kennedy and Wiles were in attendance Monday, along with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Erica Schwartz and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, among others.
Trump said the order will promote “new research and really go after the understudied diseases affecting women and promote innovative technologies to diagnose conditions sooner and improve treatment using the best available science, and we’ve got that.”
The task force — which will hold its first meeting Monday — will “mobilize the entire federal government to coordinate action focused on improving women’s health,” Trump said.
Revoking Biden actions
Trump in his order also revoked a 2024 executive order by then-President Joe Biden that sought to improve women’s health research as well as a 2023 memorandum that had established the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research.
The National Women’s Law Center criticized the administration for rolling out the order amid “major attacks on women’s health,” pointing to the GOP’s mega tax and spending cut law signed by Trump in 2025, which includes sweeping Medicaid cuts that axe roughly $1 trillion in program spending over 10 years.
“Women’s health has long been ignored as a federal priority, and while we agree that steps must be taken to close disparities in women’s health care, it’s hard not to point out the blatant hypocrisy of this unfunded order coming from an administration that is actively decimating health care access for women,” Dorianne Mason, senior director of health equity and contraceptive access at NWLC, said in a statement Monday.
Under its current guidelines, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not require in-person visits, waiting periods or ultrasounds for women seeking abortion pills. Nevertheless, 10 states without total abortion bans still require them. (Photo by Anna Spoerre/Missouri Independent)
As they await a federal decision on a potential nationwide ban on telehealth abortions, anti-abortion activists plan to push more states to require women to visit a doctor’s office, get an ultrasound or wait before they can get abortion pills.
Under its current guidelines, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not require in-person visits, ultrasounds or waiting periods for women seeking abortion pills. Nevertheless, 10 states without total abortion bans still require them.
One of those states is Florida. The state only allows abortion up to six weeks — which is before many women discover they are pregnant. Under state law, women must first get an ultrasound and then wait at least 24 hours before receiving pills or a procedure. By that time, they might be beyond the six weeks threshold.
“Floridians are already under a time clock,” said Lana’e Hernandez, a case manager for the Florida Access Network, an abortion fund that helps women pay for their abortions and travel to other states if they fall outside Florida’s narrow window.
“I see a lot of clients having to then travel out of state and take even more time off of work, adding another barrier to accessing care because of those laws combined.”
Medication abortion typically involves two drugs: mifepristone and misoprostol. The FDA approved the two-drug regimen in 2000 and gradually loosened restrictions as safety reviews showed a low risk of serious and life-threatening conditions. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, the Biden administration suspended enforcement of the rule that patients had to take the medication in person, and the FDA officially removed that requirement in 2023.
But anti-abortion organizations and attorneys general have challenged these changes in ongoing federal lawsuits. And in 2025, activist groups successfully pressured the Trump administration’s FDA to review the safety data again.
On Wednesday, the FDA is expected to update the public on the progress of this review, though the agency is not expected to issue a final ruling on telehealth access to the pills. The Washington Sun recently reported that the Trump administration wants to delay any potentially controversial actions around abortion until after the midterm elections. The administration has also delayed multiple ongoing federal lawsuits until after the review.
Abortion rights advocates say reversing telehealth access to medication abortion would have a huge impact across the country. Medication abortions now account for about 65% of all abortions, and roughly 28% of all abortions are through telehealth, according to KFF, a health research group.
Critical elections
In statehouses, the midterm elections could determine whether more states will seek to restrict medication abortion.
Meanwhile, Democratic control of Congress could doom President Donald Trump’s nominee for FDA commissioner. During her confirmation hearing last month, nominee Heidi Overton would not say whether she would recommend changes to mifepristone regulation, but in the past she has expressed anti-abortion views and written that the medication is dangerous.
National anti-abortion leaders told Stateline they will not be satisfied if the FDA determines that mifepristone is safe and can be administered via telehealth.
“There are comorbidities that come with mifepristone, like ectopic pregnancies that need to be diagnosed prior to the actual provision of mifepristone, and right now under the FDA system, that’s not working,” said Bradley Kehr, vice president of legal affairs of Americans United for Life. “So states are stepping in to say that they have serious concerns, and they’re taking action for the safety of their citizens.”
Peer-reviewed studies overwhelmingly show a low risk of serious adverse events for medication abortions up to 10 weeks’ gestation, including via telehealth. But national anti-abortion groups have pointed to examples of coercion and non-peer-reviewed white papers to argue the risks are more significant than what the FDA has reported, and that ultrasounds should be required before the pills are administered.
Hernandez of the Florida Access Network said ultrasounds might be appropriate for women who have irregular periods or are at risk for an ectopic pregnancy, but that they should not be universally mandated by lawmakers. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, for patients with regular menstrual cycles and no risk factors for ectopic pregnancy, a clinical examination or ultrasound is not necessary before taking abortion pills.
“These are conversations that you should be having with your medical professional and not the government mandating you to do one thing or another,” Hernandez said. “You should be able to trust your physician to tell you whether you need an ultrasound or not to have an abortion.”
Abortion rights advocates say abortion is being singled out even as more medical care is being delivered via telehealth.
“When it comes to telehealth for abortion care specifically, a lot of those concerns, I think are coming from a place that’s really informed by abortion stigma,” said Kimya Forouzan, the principal state policy advisor of the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization that supports abortion rights. “Receiving medication abortion via telehealth is not different than any other form of telehealth care.”
Existing restrictions
In addition to Florida, Alaska, Georgia, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin require ultrasounds or other in-person requirements before medication abortions. In-person requirements can include an initial in-person exam, in-person counseling, a requirement that the pills be dispensed in person or a requirement that the first dose be taken in person.
Thirteen other states (Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia) ban all abortions.
In Alaska, Missouri and Wisconsin, plaintiffs have challenged the laws on state constitutional grounds. Wyoming last year enacted a law requiring ultrasounds and a 48-hour waiting period before medication abortions. But a state district judge overturned the law in June, ruling that it violated a constitutional amendment protecting healthcare decisions, and that the state “offered no cogent evidence illustrating that a waiting period is necessary for any purpose.”
At the federal level, plaintiffs have argued that state regulations on abortion pills should not supersede the federal guidelines.
“The FDA sets the bar, and states don’t get to impede access to an FDA-approved medication,” said Kirsten Moore, director of the Expanding Medication Abortion Access (EMMA) Project, which tracks litigation related to medication abortion.
In an ongoing federal lawsuit over North Carolina’s restrictions, the plaintiffs argue that the state law conflicts with the FDA’s regulatory authority. A federal judge in 2024 ruled that the state could not ban the mailing of abortion pills, since federal rules allow it. But the judge upheld the state’s ultrasound requirement and its waiting period.
The case is pending appeal, with oral arguments scheduled for later this month at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which last year upheld medication abortion restrictions in West Virginia, which bans all abortions and explicitly telehealth abortions. In that case, plaintiff generic mifepristone manufacturer GenBioPro argued the state’s ban violated the federal regulation of abortion pills, but the appeals court affirmed the lower court’s decision that FDA regulations did not preempt the state’s abortion ban.
Earlier this year, Iowa also enacted a law requiring abortion-inducing medication to be prescribed in person and dispensed in a medical setting.
Beaufield Berry, executive director of the Iowa Abortion Access Fund, said that since the law went into effect, her group has gotten more calls from people asking for financial help to travel out of state. She said there are two abortion clinics left in the state, both in central Iowa, making it especially difficult on people in rural areas.
“It’s really hard for some people to be able to make an appointment to go get an ultrasound, and then if they do that, then they’re running up against that six-week clock,” Berry said.
“For an in-person visit, that’s transportation, missing work, finding childcare. And in many cases, the act of having an abortion, you may not have support,” she said. “They may be underage, and so that creates even more barriers to getting an in-person meeting.”
Different strategies
Kehr of Americans United for Life said anti-abortion state lawmakers are still figuring out their individual strategies for restricting access to abortion medication. He cited the 10th Amendment, which gives states the authority through their police power to protect their citizens, as a legal justification for mandating ultrasounds or in-clinic visits before abortion pills are dispensed.
“Other states are taking different approaches, whether it’s the ultrasound provision to check for ectopic pregnancies and things like that, or the actual consideration of abuse that’s occurring,” Kehr said.
“We’ve had multiple stories of men forcing their pregnant girlfriends or wives to take mifepristone. So looking at it from an abusive perspective or a coercive perspective, states are really looking at the gamut of options under the 10th Amendment powers.”
Model legislation developed by the National Right to Life Committee, known as the Abortion Pill Provider Liability Education (APPLE) Act, and introduced this year in New Jersey and Ohio, would require abortion-pill prescribers to inform patients about the risks of the drugs, as well as her right to sue the provider if she faces complications.
The National Right to Life Committee also supports in-person visits and mandatory ultrasounds.
“Requiring a healthcare provider to confirm, locate, and date a pregnancy before prescribing a dangerous mixture of abortion-inducing drugs is a bare-minimum safety standard, and we believe it should apply in every state,” Ingrid Duran, director of state legislation for the National Right to Life Committee, wrote in an email.
Also looming in the background are interstate fights over so-called shield law providers prescribing medication virtually. Attorneys general in Alabama, Arkansas and Louisiana filed lawsuits last week targeting shield laws and in California, Massachusetts and New York, and individual doctors prescribing abortion pills to women in states with abortion bans.
“A woman can’t possibly receive fully informed consent specific to her when the dispensing provider doesn’t even know how far along she is in her pregnancy because the risk is different depending on how far along she is,” said Dr. Christina Francis, an OB-GYN based in Fort Wayne, Indiana, who is CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which has opposed abortion pills since they were first approved in 2000.
“We believe that women deserve fully informed consent, and that necessarily involves an ultrasound when we’re talking about pregnancy.”
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
David Crowley, who in July restarted his campaign 10 days after he dropped out, said Gov. Tony Evers, who endorsed him, was his campaign’s “secret weapon.” (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Democratic candidate David Crowley committed to advocate for a constitutional amendment that would allow voters to decide whether access to abortion and reproductive healthcare is a right protected by the state constitution.
At an event in Milwaukee on Tuesday, Crowley said that it is good that the state Supreme Court ruled that an 1849 law that was interpreted as a nearly absolute ban on abortion is unenforceable. But, he said, “other restrictions remain, and future legislatures can change that law.” He appeared at the event with U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and his running mate, lieutenant governor candidate Sarah Godlewski.
For a proposed constitutional amendment to go before voters, the Wisconsin Legislature has to pass the proposal in two consecutive sessions. The governor does not have a role in signing off on the proposals.
“Right now, women’s rights are only safe as the next election, and I don’t think Wisconsin’s women should have to hold their breath every four years,” Crowley said. “This amendment will establish a fundamental right to make and carry out decisions about reproductive health, including contraception, fertility treatment, pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion. It will keep medical judgments about viability and necessary care with treating healthcare professionals, and it will prevent the state from penalizing anyone who is seeking healthcare or helping another person seek the care that they need.”
During the Milwaukee event, Crowley criticized Republican candidate Tom Tiffany as being “an anti-abortion extremist who backed their plan to ban abortion nationwide at zero weeks with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of a mother.”
Tiffany previously supported legislation to restrict abortion access during his time in the state Legislature and in Congress. He voted in 2015, when he was a state senator, for the state’s ban on abortion after 20 weeks. In Congress, he has cosponsored legislation that would have made it a crime for doctors to perform abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy.
“David Crowley wants unlimited abortion all the way up to nine months, and I just don’t think that’s where most Wisconsinites are,” Tiffany said.
A recent lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin seeks to repeal several laws in Wisconsin that restrict abortion, arguing that they are unconstitutional because of a constitutional right to abortion. There is no language in the state constitution that directly addresses abortion, but the lawsuit argues the passage that guarantees that “all people are born equally free and independent and possess inherent rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” covers a right to abortion.
A new poll from The 19th and YouGov sheds light on how young men and women are shaped by certain historical moments and tend to diverge on issues of gender and reproductive rights. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Editor’s note: This story is part of Gen Z at the Ballot Box, a collaboration between States Newsroom and The 19th.
Brenna Vandergeest was a teenager when her grandmother told her about Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court case that ended the federal right to an abortion. She said it lit a fire in her, one that has shaped her politics.
“I think that really flipped a switch in my head because knowing as a woman that rights that had been protected for years and years have now been overturned — it really made me upset,” Vandergeest said. “It really drove my view on reproductive rights because I do believe that only a woman should have a say over her body, and it shouldn’t be up to the government.”
Now a senior at Neumann University, a small private Catholic school in Pennsylvania, the 21-year-old said she would describe herself as a progressive liberal with Democrat-leaning views who is most passionate about reproductive rights, healthcare and how the government responds to addiction and recovery.
Every generation has an ideological gender gap — and Gen Z is no different. A new poll from The 19th and YouGov sheds light on how young men and women are shaped by certain historical moments and tend to diverge on issues of gender and reproductive rights. Gen Z women are more likely than Gen Z men to consider themselves feminist, identify as liberal and Democrat, support abortion access, and believe society should not return to traditional gender norms, according to the new poll.
The 19th/YouGov poll was conducted online from Sept. 18-24 among 2,357 adults, including an oversampling of 18- to 29-year-olds. The margin of error for the overall sample is ±2.5 points.
Gen Z women are more likely to say they’re Democrats, 37% to 21% of men. Among Gen Z men, about 38% are Republican and 27% political independents. For Gen Z women, 29% are Republicans and 21% are independents.
The poll also found that 38% of Gen Z women and 28% of Gen Z men describe themselves as liberal; 26% of Gen Z women and 34% of Gen Z men identify as conservative.
Claire Gothreau, an assistant professor of political science at Lebanon Valley College, said the ideological gender gap is not unique to Gen Z. Women have tended to identify as more liberal and Democratic than men for decades, and a greater proportion of women than men have voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since 1980, she said.
“What does appear especially interesting about Gen Z is the combination of ideology, gender identity, feminism and political participation,” Gothreau said. “Young women have come of age politically during a period in which issues related to gender and reproductive rights have been really prominent. The #MeToo movement, the first Trump presidency and the Dobbs decision all occurred during the formative political years of Gen Z women.”
The #MeToo movement, founded in 2006 by activist Tarana Burke, brought a reckoning for powerful men at its public peak in 2017 and 2018. The movement led to changes in laws and policies to address abuse, but it also drew a cultural backlash that contributed to President Donald Trump’s second term. The president, who has been accused by dozens of women of sexual misconduct, was found liable of sexual abuse in May 2023.
Supporting reproductive rights
While the majority of Gen Zers say abortion should be always or mostly legal, women were more likely to say so than men, 69% to 51%. Almost half of men versus 31% of women say it should be mostly or always illegal.
Paige McCord-Hyman, a 20-year-old junior at Neumann University, said she identifies as a Democrat with progressive views. The issue she’s most passionate about is also reproductive rights. When Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, McCord-Hyman said her mother was experiencing pregnancy complications at the time, taking a toll on her mom and the rest of the family.
“It’s not that every woman should get an abortion,” McCord-Hyman said. “Whatever your religious views are, whatever your moral views are — that’s perfectly fine. But I feel like the Dobbs decision was taking away the choice. It wasn’t even in the cards anymore, and I feel like that’s not something that a man should have any say over. And even taking gender out of it, nobody should have a say in what I choose to do with my body.”
A return to traditional roles
According to the poll, 43% of Gen Z women and 51% of Gen Z men think society would benefit from a return to traditional gender roles.
Roy Dawes, an associate professor of political science at Gettysburg College, said that while young women have been quickly adopting anti-patriarchal attitudes, some young men have started to feel alienated. And these men are finding community online, he added.
“Young men are desiring a return to more traditional roles,” Dawes said. “Social media algorithms exacerbate this by segregating young men and women, with young men highly susceptible to online influencers with anti-feminist and often misogynistic messages.”
Dawes also pointed out that young women are outpacing their men counterparts in academic and professional achievement, which also contributes to Gen Z men’s feeling of social and economic stagnation.
“These factors have combined to have an impact on the context of the heterosexual dating world with an increase in remaining single and a decrease in more traditional marriage and reproductive patterns,” Dawes said.
Tyler Daniel, a visiting assistant professor of political science at Roanoke College, said social media, algorithms and YouTube specifically have created deeply divided political echo chambers for Gen Z, the generation that grew up on the Internet.
“It would be an oversimplification to say that social media algorithms are the sole driving force behind the gender divide, but they present a fascinating first look into how cultural narratives shaped by social media are significantly impacting the generation aptly understood to be the social media generation,” Daniel said.
A backlash to feminism
When it comes to feminism, 49% of Gen Z women and 20% of Gen Z men consider themselves feminists, the poll found.
Vandergeest, who considers herself a feminist, said she notices a lot of toxic masculinity on social media in particular. The men in her classes at her university are typically more respectful in person, she said.
“But I have seen a lot online that males are looking for more of a traditional view of a woman, meaning a housewife with no job, no college — just bear the kids and make dinner,” Vandergeest said.
Vandergeest said she thinks this desire is just a modern backlash to feminism.
“I think that men think that feminism is something that they should be threatened by, but it’s not,” Vandergeest said. “Feminism is something where we just want to be equal. It was never that we wanted to be better than the men. We want to have the same rights, and I think that scares people and causes them to be more hateful, have more traditional views and have that incel look on women.”
In her book, “The Politics of Gen Z,” political scientist Melissa Deckman found that young women are more likely to identify as feminists. They are also more likely to participate in politics — voting, protesting, organizing and donating, according to Deckman.
Vandergeest said women in her generation are driven by the desire for equality, from the Civil Rights Movement to women’s rights and reproductive rights, and they are starting to pay attention thanks to the plethora of information available on social media.
“I think going down the line we need more people, especially women, to be in politics,” Vandergeest said. “So I do plan to run once I graduate for some political position, and I think that others should follow in our footsteps. I think our generation needs to be the stepping stone for the generations under us. They need to see what it’s really like to have rights and fight for them.”
This story was originally produced by News From The States, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Volunteer clinic escorts stand in a line before a kneeling anti-abortion demonstrator at a clinic in Louisville, Ky., in 2021. Advocates from each side of the abortion issue have pushed for Congress to either codify the Hyde Amendment into law or codify its repeal, but neither side has been successful. (Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images)
In the early months of 2022, Democrats in Congress came close to passing an appropriations bill that did not include a provision barring federal funding for abortions — maybe the closest it had ever come in more than 40 years.
But those who wanted the Hyde Amendment included won the battle in the end. Three months later, the U.S. Supreme Court made its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Healthto allow states to regulate abortion access. That year, the 50-year precedent of a constitutional right to abortion ended, and the 50-year precedent of no federal tax funding to pay for abortions endures.
The Hyde Amendment was first passed Sept. 30, 1976, three years after the Roe decision. The clause — which isn’t a constitutional amendment — is named for Republican U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois. It marked one of the first legislative victories for anti-abortion groups after Roe v. Wade guaranteed abortion access up to fetal viability.
In the decades since, it has been added to every appropriations bill passed by Congress, restricting federal Medicaid dollars from paying for abortion care except in limited cases of rape, incest and to prevent a pregnant patient’s death. The result has left countless people without a way to pay for the procedure, which advocates for abortion access say causes more abortions to happen later in pregnancy and unnecessarily endangers patients’ health.
Abortion opponents say the Hyde Amendment has prevented 2.7 million abortions. An estimated 300,000 abortions per year were covered by federal dollars prior to the Hyde Amendment. While there aren’t any major organizations that have published how much the federal government has saved by not funding abortion care, advocates say it costs the government more not to fund it because of the extra costs added to medical care and public assistance programs.
As more polls and strategists indicate Democrats could take over congressional majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in January, some anti-abortion advocates fear such a change could be the most serious threat to Hyde’s future since the party nearly repealed the amendment in 2022.
“If there becomes a pro-abortion majority in Congress, then Hyde is going to be one of the first things to go, probably, especially because it’s been in the spotlight more recently,” said Gavin Oxley, spokesperson for Americans United for Life, a national anti-abortion organization.
Advocates from each side of the issue have pushed for Congress to either codify Hyde into law or codify its repeal, but neither side has been successful. Because of filibuster rules that are usually used in the U.S. Senate on controversial pieces of legislation, legislation would likely need 60 votes to pass, a tall order in a highly polarized environment.
Quotation
There are some Republicans who may not be as committed to protecting Hyde.
– Gavin Oxley, spokesperson for Americans United for Life
Oxley said anti-abortion advocates aren’t worried just about Democrats, though. During negotiations over legislation that would have extended subsidies for premiums under the Affordable Care Act, President Donald Trumptold congressional Republicans in January that they needed to be “a little flexible” on including the Hyde Amendment. The bill never came to fruition and the subsidies expired, but the incident worried anti-abortion groups such as Oxley’s.
“If we get a pro-abortion majority (in Congress), then I would be concerned,” Oxley said. “There are some Republicans who may not be as committed to protecting Hyde.”
Anti-abortion groups tout polls showing strong support for keeping federal dollars from funding abortion care, but few nonpartisan polls have been conducted on the issue, and no major nonpartisan polls have surfaced in the years since 2022, when 13 states implemented near-total abortion bans. A2016 Politico poll conducted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found 58% of likely voters opposed using Medicaid to fund abortions.
When other polls commissioned by pro-abortion rights organizations have framed the question with language specific to how Hyde works, which is that a pregnant patient covered by Medicaid can have pregnancy care and childbirth covered but not the cost of an abortion,support for repealing the Hyde amendment goes up. A 2015 poll found that 62% of voters said Medicaid should cover abortion services.
Effects extend beyond abortion procedures
Amanda Jean Stevenson, associate professor of sociology and director of population at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said many scholars have tracked the fallout of the Hyde Amendment since its inception, but it’s difficult to trace pregnancy complications or deaths back to Hyde.
Many abortion rights advocates point to thecase of Rosie Jimenez, a 27-year-old Texas woman who was denied care at a clinic in 1977 because of her Medicaid status and instead sought care from an unlicensed midwife. She died from an infection after spending a week in intensive care. Her daughter, Monique, was 4 years old at the time and now advocates for policy change.
“It’s very easy for some people to say (Rosie Jimenez’s death) was caused by the Hyde Amendment,” Stevenson said. Had Medicaid benefits covered the abortion, “she probably would’ve had that option for safer care.”
Named after Republican U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, the Hyde Amendment was first passed Sept. 30, 1976. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Jimenez’s case happened a few months after Hyde was first included in an appropriations bill, but it didn’t change its inclusion in future bills. Many scholars have documented the effects of low-income patients being denied coverage for abortions, but it hasn’t resulted in policy change, Stevenson said.
“People set out to find out about the impact of it, they find that it has a big adverse impact, and that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change the policy or people’s opinion of it, it doesn’t change anything, really,” she said. “Evidence continues to be generated, and it continues to be ignored.”
Marlene Gerber Fried, co-founder and the former president of the National Network of Abortion Funds, said it would be nice to think that a change in Congress would bring about the end of Hyde, but she’s heard optimism of that kind before. When former Democratic President Bill Clinton took office in 1993, abortion-rights advocates also expected change.
In the years since, Fried said, the Hyde Amendment has been a “fault line” in the abortion rights space, even as some abortion rights advocates think they are gaining ground with public opinion.
“It’s not that they were against public funding, they just thought it wasn’t going to get to a win,” Fried said.
Researchers say Hyde doesn’t just affect the direct costs of abortion procedures. River Robbins, a doctoral candidate in applied medical anthropology and adjunct instructor at the University of South Florida, said his dissertation research has shown not having access to federal funding affects other services available at individual clinics. Independent clinics provide 58% of all abortions nationwide, according to data from the Abortion Care Network.
Many clinics serve low-income communities and people of color, including patients who need interpreters or other language or disability services. While hospital networks have access to funding that helps them provide those services, such money is not available to clinics that primarily exist to provide abortion care.
Hyde won’t be the end of funding challenges, advocates say
Now that access to abortion is extremely limited in more than a dozen states, even fewer people can rely on Medicaid to cover abortion costs. Those who can’t access abortion care at home often must travel to another state, where their local Medicaid program dollars won’t apply. That has put extra burdens on local and regional abortion funds and other philanthropic organizations to fill the funding gaps. Sometimes health clinics just take a loss rather than denying someone an abortion.
“We know that our providers don’t turn folks away, and sometimes that comes at great cost to their clinics and their ability to operate,” said Kelsey Ryland, policy counsel for the National Abortion Federation.
Chelsea Souder, co-owner of Hope Clinic in Illinois, said she hopes the Hyde Amendment will be permanently repealed in the near future, but that even if it is, there will still be many gaps in funding for abortion care.
Even in states with access, including some of the most accessible states in the country like Illinois, state Medicaid coverage is often inadequate to cover costs by itself, especially for those who need carelater in pregnancy. Souder said 85% of her clinic’s revenue does not come from patients who pay out of pocket or with Medicaid — it comes from abortion funds or donors, which she said is not sustainable.
“Making abortion actually accessible and affordable is where the focus has to be,” Souder said.
According to health policy institute KFF, 21 states allow their state Medicaid program to cover abortion costs, and some have expanded those policies since Roe fell. But reimbursement rates for providers continue to be low, regardless of where the clinic is located, and they are exceedingly low for abortions later in a pregnancy.
Dr. Diane Horvath, chief medical officer at Partners in Abortion Care in Maryland, said the clinic ran an experiment of accepting all state Medicaid patients for a year and a half, starting in 2024. Despite strong state support for abortion access at any stage in pregnancy, the low reimbursement rates for care beyond the second trimester resulted in a loss to the clinic of $1.2 million during that time. That includes cost increases for supplies and labor, since the clinic hasn’t increased prices for patients.
“For most of these patients, we lose at least $4,000 a patient,” Horvath said. “A hospital might be able to recover more and spread loss over different departments, but I don’t have another clinic, I don’t have another place I can draw funds from.”
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin's Water Street Health Center in Milwaukee. (Photo courtesy of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin)
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin is challenging state laws that restrict abortion access, arguing they unconstitutionally infringe on Wisconsinites’ right to “liberty and bodily autonomy.”
Tanya Atkinson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Wisconsin, said during a virtual press conference Thursday that the case seeks to address a “powerful promise” in the state Constitution. The Wisconsin Constitution states that “all people are born equally free and independent and possess inherent rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The organization is seeking to establish a constitutional right to abortion with the suit.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday by Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin in Dane County Circuit Court on behalf of its staff and patients against Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, the state Medical Examining Board and the Board of Nursing.
It challenges two restrictions in Wisconsin law: one that requires that only physicians provide abortion care and one that requires patients to wait 24 hours between a consultation appointment with a physician and an abortion appointment with the same physician.
“In this case, we ask our Court to recognize what we believe that promise means — that our constitutional freedom includes the ability to make deeply personal decisions about our reproductive healthcare without unnecessary government interference,” Atkinson said.
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, access to abortion has been in flux in Wisconsin. Planned Parenthood first ceased providing abortion services due to an 1849 law interpreted as a near-total abortion ban that was later declared invalid by the state Supreme Court. It again paused abortion services in Wisconsin due to federal changes included in President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” law, though it has since resumed those services.
“Whether you can receive healthcare shouldn’t depend on what happened in court that morning. It shouldn’t depend on whether your appointment happens to fall before or after the latest political fight,” Atkinson said. “We cannot continue allowing access to essential healthcare to be this fragile, and that’s why today isn’t simply about defending what we have, but about moving forward… There’s an entire generation of young people growing up who have never experienced reproductive freedom that many of us once took for granted. We have an opportunity to change that trajectory.”
This is not the first time Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has sued to establish a constitutional right to abortion.
It previously sued to establish a constitutional right to abortion in a challenge to the 1849 law. The case was dismissed by the state Supreme Court after it overturned the 1849 law in a different lawsuit on the basis that the law was invalid due to subsequent laws that had been passed to regulate abortion, including the ones now being challenged.
“None of our courts have decided whether or not the Wisconsin Constitution, in fact, protects this fundamental freedom,” Atkinson said. “We believe it does.”
The new lawsuit argues the restrictions unconstitutionally limit access to healthcare.
“Through this case, we are asking Wisconsin courts to recognize that these restrictions conflict with the freedoms and protections guaranteed to each of us under our state’s Constitution, and if we are successful, this will be a generational step forward for reproductive freedom in Wisconsin,” Atkinson said.
There are a handful of state laws that require a physician to provide abortion care including one that says it is a Class I felony for anyone who is not a physician to perform an abortion. Atkinson said there are other healthcare providers who could safely provide abortions including advanced practice nurse practitioners, physician assistants and certified nurse midwives.
The 24-hour waiting period, which requires a delay between a face-to-face consultation with a physician and the induction of an abortion, was implemented in 1996 under a law signed by Gov. Tommy Thompson.
Allison Linton, a board-certified OB-GYN, the Chief Medical Officer of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and plaintiff in the lawsuit, said during the press conference that the restrictions may be presented as medically necessary, but they are not and can be a hindrance to patients accessing care. She said she sees patients every week who struggle to make time for two separate trips to the office for care.
“They tell us, ‘I don’t have another sick day. I just started this job. I’m afraid I could lose my job if I ask for more time off. I don’t have someone who can watch my children again. I have to get home,’” Linton said, adding that she has cared this week for patients who traveled from Texas and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. “These burdens fall especially hard on people who already face barriers to healthcare — people who work hourly jobs, people with limited financial resources, parents who need childcare and patients who have to travel long distances to reach us.”
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has three clinics in the state that provide abortion services — in Milwaukee, Madison and Sheboygan. According to the complaint, Planned Parenthood sees patients five days a week at its Madison and Milwaukee centers. However, due to restrictions that require patients to undergo a physical exam and ultrasound, receive information and provide consent, the facilities only offer medication and procedural abortions two to three days per week on average. The Sheboygan location provides a limited number of medication abortion appointments about one day a week.
Michelle Velasquez, the chief strategy officer for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, said a successful lawsuit would not necessarily mean there would be no limits on abortion access in the state.
“Many other states have state-recognized constitutional rights,” Velasquez said. “We see those states still involved in litigation as their state legislatures pass different laws related to abortion, and so the limits of that constitutional right would very much still be in play and dependent on the type of review that would be applied to this right, and then, of course, testing various laws that may be passed in the future up against that state constitutional right. I would anticipate that if the state courts in Wisconsin do in fact affirm that there is this fundamental right to bodily autonomy that an entire sort of new body of law will develop over time.”
The lawsuit comes as control of Wisconsin’s governor’s office and the Legislature is up for grabs, though Atkinson said the fact that it’s an election year did not play a role in the suit.
“To have the elections be a calculus in when we file a lawsuit, just underscores how normalized it is to have abortion and politics mixed together. The reality is abortion is healthcare. People need access across the state, and for too long, women have had incredible barriers in the state of Wisconsin because of politics,” Atkinson said.
Wisconsin’s abortion laws could change depending on how the elections go. Democrats, if they gain control of both houses of the Legislature and the governor’s office, hope to advance legislation that would roll back restrictions.
One proposed bill from Democrats, which Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) recently promoted on X, would roll back a number of restrictions including the provider ban, the 24-hour waiting period, an ultrasound requirement for women seeking an abortion and healthcare coverage restrictions.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, the Democratic nominee for governor, celebrated the lawsuit in a statement, saying it is “a reminder that Wisconsin must elect a governor who will protect reproductive rights and keep politicians out of private medical decisions.”
A group of about 11 Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Lindee Brill (R-Sheboygan Falls), Sen. Romaine Quinn (R-Birchwood) and Sen. Cory Tomczyk (R-Mosinee), condemned the lawsuit in a statement, saying that it is an attempt to “usurp the duty” of the state Legislature.
“If pro-abortion radicals want to change the law in Wisconsin, they should go through the legislative process,” the lawmakers said. “However, Planned Parenthood has not deigned to proceed that way due to their impatience and desperate urge to encourage a culture of death.”
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican candidate for governor, said in a statement that he would “uphold Wisconsin’s current laws” if elected. Tiffany previously supported legislation to restrict abortion access during his time in the state Legislature and in Congress. He voted in 2015 while in the state Senate for the state’s ban on abortion after 20 weeks. In Congress, Tiffany cosponsored a bill in 2023 that would have made it a crime for doctors to perform abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin filed a new lawsuit challenging Wisconsin abortion restrictions Thursday, just days after the Wisconsin Supreme Court returned to work with a newly cemented 5-2 liberal majority in place.
The lawsuit, filed in Dane County against Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, argues that two Wisconsin laws violate the state constitution’s guarantee of personal liberty.
One of those laws requires people seeking abortions to wait 24 hours between requesting an abortion and receiving one. The other states that only licensed physicians may provide abortions; this limits a person’s ability to self-administer abortion drugs through telehealth.
“This case asks our court to recognize … that our constitutional freedom includes the ability to make deeply personal decisions about our reproductive health care without unnecessary government interference,” said Tanya Atkinson, the president of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, during a press briefing announcing the lawsuit.
The case names Ozanne as a representative of all Wisconsin district attorneys because they would prosecute violations of the rule that only physicians can administer abortions, said Diane Welsh, a lawyer for Planned Parenthood.
“Anywhere in the state where an abortion would be provided, there could be criminal charges for a person who’s not a physician,” said Welsh.
Lawsuits challenging Wisconsin’s abortion restrictions have been anticipated since Roe vs. Wade — which federally protected abortion access — was overturned in 2022, effectively throwing the issue back to the states. The most significant challenge was over a Civil War-era statute that had been interpreted as banning abortion in Wisconsin and that went back into effect when Roe was overturned.
That law was at the heart of campaigns to elect liberal justices to the state Supreme Court, and last year, the high court overturned the statute, allowing abortions to be administered within the state under certain restrictions.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court found that the 19th-century law had been superseded by a series of additional restrictions passed in the ensuing decades. Immediately, abortion advocates signaled they might challenge those restrictions.
Thursday’s announcement makes good on those possibilities. In the briefing, attorneys for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin argued that requiring a physician to be present during abortions and requiring a person to receive counseling and wait a full day before receiving abortion care are unnecessary and illegal barriers to health care access.
“Through this case, we are asking Wisconsin courts to recognize that these restrictions conflict with the freedoms and protections guaranteed to each of us under our state’s constitution,” said Atkinson. “It’s about whether our constitutional freedoms belong to each of us, or whether the government can make our most personal decisions for us.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Wisconsin Right to Life said Planned Parenthood is seeking a “permanent constitutional shield” for abortion access.
“This lawsuit isn’t about access,” said Samantha Craig. “It’s about removing the last few guardrails standing between a woman and the procedure table. It is incredible to us that such basic protections for informed consent and women’s safety are disregarded for the sake of protecting Planned Parenthood’s abortion-first business model.”
The Wisconsin Supreme Court, which would have the final say in the case, has a definitive liberal slant that is all but guaranteed to be in place for years to come. Liberal Justice Chris Taylor, whose 10-year term began in August, was once a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood. Liberal Justice Susan Crawford, who was sworn in a year earlier, once represented the group as a private attorney.
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