Women and doctors on latest abortion restrictions: Get out

Candidate for governor Tom Tiffany tries to imply he’d maintain current law, but his record and rhetoric show that Wisconsin could see a total abortion ban if he’s elected.

There is no shortage of polling to illustrate far-right politicians and their crusade to ban abortion care and restrict women’s reproductive rights wildly differ from mainstream Wisconsin values. But that isn’t stopping Republicans in Madison and Washington, DC, from trying new approaches to regulate what happens in exam rooms and even shut down entire clinics. After all, the newest approach is working.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin will stop providing abortion care shortly as it awaits legal challenges to the Trump/Republican megabill that cut taxes for the wealthy, paid by massive cuts to health care, including Medicaid, to payments to clinics that perform non-abortion services.

Medicaid dollars are not used for abortion care, but clinics like Planned Parenthood and their patients rely on Medicaid support for a wide range of other care options: physicals, cancer screenings, vaccinations, sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, blood tests, and more.

The Trump bill says clinics where abortions are performed no longer qualify for Medicaid support for all of the other services. It faces multiple legal challenges, but a court is allowing Trump to halt payments while cases are heard.

“This is Donald Trump’s backdoor abortion ban because he knows he can’t do it through the front door,” said Dr. Kristin Lyerly, an obstetrician-gynecologist in the Green Bay area, noting widespread public opposition to abortion bans that aren’t tucked into other legislation.

Tom Tiffany’s abortion illusion

The Trump bill containing the attack on Planned Parenthood was supported by all of Wisconsin’s GOP congressional representatives, including US Rep. Tom Tiffany, a newly-announced candidate for governor in the 2026 election. Tiffany has consistently supported and sponsored bills to create abortion bans at six weeks gestation, with no exceptions for victims of rape and incest.

But in his first days as a gubernatorial candidate he has tried masking that position with carefully-worded statements about supporting current state law, which restricts abortions at 20 weeks gestation—a bill he voted for while in the legislature in 2015.

“I will uphold the law as written currently,” Tiffany told a Fox 6 Milwaukee reporter, without specifically answering a follow-up question about whether he would veto a more restrictive six-week ban if it came to his desk.

“I’m going to uphold the law that is currently in place,” he repeated.

Governor Tiffany and a GOP Legislature: What if?

If Tiffany were elected governor in 2026, and Republicans are able to hold onto majorities in the state Assembly and Senate, a near-total abortion ban would not be a surprise based on the many bills passed but vetoed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. Even now, assured of another Evers veto, Republican lawmakers have introduced a new bill to meddle in the care doctors are able to give women during pregnancy.

If passed, state law would spell out specific medical practices that the legislators claim would not be construed as providing abortion, such as an emergency C-section or removing an ectopic pregnancy. 

Since the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022 removed Roe v. Wade’s abortion rights, doctors and patients have repeatedly explained how an abortion ban will harm women and babies in instances where pregnancies are no longer viable or other conditions that leave physicians no choice but to abort the pregnancy. The GOP legislators say their bill spells out those exceptions, but critics say it amounts to micro-managing personal medical decisions and will force doctors to consider legality over what’s medically necessary in order to abide by the language in the bill.

“If the authors of that bill want to practice medicine, they should go to medical school,” Lyerly said. “Otherwise, they should leave it up to the people who know what they’re doing. It makes me so profoundly angry because all they have is a political agenda. All they want is control and power over people of reproductive age.”

Lyerly made her remarks on “Mornings with Pat Kreitlow,” the daily UpNorthNews radio show. 

In response, legislative Democrats reintroduced their “Right to Contraception Act,” that would establish a statutory right to access—and a health care provider’s right to provide—contraceptives and information regarding contraception. State and local governments would be barred from passing restrictions on  contraceptives or contraception-related information.  

“Birth control is health care,” said Senate Democratic Leader Hesselbein. “The threats to access to contraception are significant, urgent, and potentially disastrous. This bill puts necessary and timely protections into Wisconsin law.”