MADISON, Wis. — Divisions in the anti-abortion movement were on full display in Wisconsin's Capitol Monday as a legislative committee heard public comment on a proposal to replace the state’s currently suspended abortion ban with a voter referendum on a 14-week ban.
The Wisconsin Assembly’s Committee on Health, Aging and Long-Term Care conducted a public hearing on Monday for Assembly Bill 975, which was introduced last week and proposes a referendum on a ban on abortions after the 14th week of pregnancy. The bill, with voter approval, would reduce the window of permissible abortions in the state by six weeks, with exceptions only for medical emergencies.
It would, however, be a substantial liberalization of Wisconsin abortion law in the event an 1849 total ban comes back into effect. That law came back into effect when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, but was rendered largely ineffective by a Dane County judge, whose decision has been appealed and is expected to go before the state’s liberal-majority Supreme Court this year.
The proposed bill, which Democratic Governor Tony Evers has vowed to veto, seemed to please nobody at Monday’s hearing. Several physicians, social workers and medical students described it as an effort to curtail the rights of pregnant people to make their own medical decisions.
They also warned that it could worsen existing shortages of OB-GYNs in Wisconsin as new doctors shy away from practicing in the state.
“While I appreciate the desires of the authors of this bill to save lives, the passage of this bill would only endanger them," medical student Maya Seshan told the committee. "We’ve already seen the most recent data from a lot of hospitals that are matching residents, just decreasing drastically … just because of the legislation that’s even considered in this state.”
The vast majority of testimony against the bill, however, came from anti-abortion groups and individuals. Representatives of the Heal Without Harm coalition, a group comprised of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference and anti-abortion groups Pro-Life Wisconsin, Wisconsin Family Action and Wisconsin Right to Life, joined with several anti-abortion individuals to sharply criticize Republican legislators for contemplating an alternative to a total abortion ban.
“The killing of a healthy child in her mother’s womb is illegal in Wisconsin” said Jack Hoogendyk, legislative and policy director for Wisconsin Family Action and a former Republican legislator in Michigan. “Please, don’t water down one of the best laws in the United States protecting the unborn.”
Matt Sande, Legislative Director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, testified alongside Hoggendyk, Tia Izzia of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference and Gracie Skogman of Wisconsin Right to Life. The four presented a united front against the bill, variously calling it defeatist, amoral and politically unsound.
One Republican committee member, saying he supported the bill, asked the group if part of their opposition was rooted in the fear of a referendum’s results.
“There is a backlash that is occurring. We are all seeing it. People have been used to having abortion on demand for 50 years,” Sande conceded. “We understand the political realities … but we believe that it’s best that we defend our law.” He was wary, he said, of the consequences should the referendum go to a vote and come out either way. “If this referendum were to pass ... it’d be ‘oh, the people have spoken ’... and that would really hinder our organizational mission.”
This apprehension was shared by Hoogendyk, who said he was “concerned that this will pass or fail at the ballot box,” and that he believed the legislature had a duty to prevent abortion “no matter what the public opinion is.” He also said that a 14-week ban was swinging too low. A constitutional amendment banning abortion completely, he said, stood “a very good chance” with better communication from advocates.
Of the anti-abortion opponents to the bill, the Heal Without Harm coalition were some of the friendliest with Republican lawmakers. Fellow Republican legislators Chuck Wichgers and Janel Brandjen also spoke against the bill, largely raising procedural questions about the proposed referendum.
The rest of the abortion opponents were largely civilians, and their rhetoric was fiery. One, a pastor, accused Republicans of hiding behind judicial supremacy — “a lie which has caused much evil to come into our land," he said — and of introducing a bill which “conspires to murder the innocent.” Another, Linda Kaufeld of Watertown, said that she opposed any bill which allows any abortions. “The result is the same,” she said, “the child is slaughtered.” A third, a longtime anti-abortion campaigner, asked why Republicans were not calling for a referendum on a total ban.
One Republican legislator on the committee, David Murphy, chafed a little at repeated accusations of murder being levied at his party and Democrats alike.
“I’m just very fearful that all groups here are painting all Republicans with a broad brush,” he said. “People call you murderers, you get a little defensive.”
Condemnation of the bill was not universal; the bill's sponsors appeared at the hearing to defend their work, and one advocate appeared late in the hearing to call for unity among abortion opponents.
The 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion nationwide exactly 51 years ago on Monday, has left Republicans in a tricky spot with abortion opponents. Disappointing election results since Roe’s reversal and a consistent losing record on abortion-related ballot questions have led some Republicans, including presidential primary frontrunner Donald Trump, to publicly take less strident positions on abortion. This repositioning has put them at odds with anti-abortion groups who, like Heal Without Harm coalition members, argue that abortion should not be a political football but “a moral absolute.”
As if to illustrate the stakes of this conflict for Republicans, Vice President Kamala Harris was also in Wisconsin on Monday, and specifically referenced the bill while speaking to crowd at a Waukesha County union hall. Calling its proponents “extremists,” Harris thrashed the bill for failing to include exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Her appearance kicked off a national tour focused on abortion issues, and took place in a hotly-contested suburban county in the battleground state. President Joe Biden won Wisconsin in 2020, but narrowly; in 2016, Hillary Clinton lost the state for her party for the first time since 1984.
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