Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers
Wisconsin subjects abortion providers to burdensome restrictions not applied to other medical professions. The anti-choice movement has undertaken a campaign to systematically impose unnecessary and burdensome regulations on abortion providers alone—not other medical professionals—in an obvious attempt to drive doctors out of practice and make abortion care more expensive and difficult to obtain. These regulations are known as TRAP Laws: Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers.
Among the most common are those restricting where abortion care may be provided. Regulations limiting abortion services to hospitals or other specialized facilities, rather than physician's offices, require doctors to obtain medically unnecessary additional licenses, needlessly convert their practices into mini-hospitals at a great expense, or provide abortion services only at hospitals, an impossibility in many parts of the country. Wisconsin Law In an attempt to drive doctors out of practice and make abortion care more expensive and difficult to obtain, the anti-choice movement has successfully passed legislation in Wisconsin that purposefully imposes unnecessary regulations on abortion providers. Wisconsin imposes a variety of burdensome requirements on abortion providers that are not imposed on other health care providers, including:
• Physicians may only perform first-trimester abortions within 30 minutes traveling time of a hospital. No exception is made for rural areas or for non-surgical abortions.
• Wisconsin law mandates that only physicians may perform an abortion, including provision of medical abortion, prohibiting certain qualified health care professionals from performing abortions. • Wisconsin has an unconstitutional requirement that all abortions after the first trimester be performed in a hospital.
These regulations make accessing abortion an especially difficult for rural women.
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