Planned Parenthood has a risky plan to bring abortions back to Wisconsin
Planned Parenthood made a somewhat surprising announcement on Thursday: It will resume providing abortion care in Wisconsin, even though litigation asking whether abortion is legal in that state has not yet concluded — and no court has yet issued an injunction prohibiting state officials from prosecuting doctors who perform abortions.
Wisconsin abortion providers, however — at least prior to Planned Parenthood’s decision — quite reasonably feared that they could be prosecuted under the 1849 law, although there are strong arguments that this very old ban on abortions was limited or repealed by a later statute.
Planned Parenthood’s announcement also comes about six weeks after Democrats effectively gained control of the state supreme court, which was controlled by conservative Republicans for many years. Justice Janet Protasiewicz, the newest member of that court, campaigned on support for abortion rights, as well as on opposition to a gerrymander that’s given Republicans virtually unbreakable control over the state legislature. And she won her race in a landslide.
Additionally, several Republican lawmakers appear to be backing away from a threat to impeach Protasiewicz — an impeachment that would most likely violate the federal Constitution — in order to prevent her from striking down the state’s gerrymandered maps.
