NARAL Pro-Choice America Releases 2003 State-by-State Review of Reproductive Rights: Wisconsin Receives an
As the nation marks the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, NARAL Pro-Choice America last week released a comprehensive report detailing a state-by-state review of abortion and reproductive rights. The report uses a ranking system to capture the burdens each state imposes on access to reproductive health care. Wisconsin received a failing grade again this year.
In recent years Wisconsin has consistently received a failing grade from NARAL Pro-Choice America because access to the full range of reproductive health care services has sharply declined. For example, in 1992 sixteen abortion providers served Wisconsin women. Today, only five clinic-based providers remain in our state. Additionally, since 1995, the Wisconsin legislature has enacted ten separate measures specifically designed to hinder access to reproductive health care.
“Anti-choice legislators in Wisconsin have been very successful in severely restricting a woman’s right to choose,” notes Deborah Lukovich, Executive Director, NARAL Wisconsin. “This is extremely disappointing because there is no question that reproductive freedom protects women’s lives, health and autonomy,” Deborah Lukovich continued.
The health and freedom of Wisconsin women remains in a very tenuous position after the 2002 midterm election. The Wisconsin Senate is again in anti-choice hands and the Wisconsin Assembly is fully two-thirds anti-choice. This large majority in the Assembly has grown so bold in recent years as to introduce measures including a denial clause allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill birth control pill prescriptions because of personal beliefs and a measure, opposed by the American Medical Association, denying civil recourse to patients whose doctors lied to them about the results of prenatal tests because those doctors feared their patients might have abortions. Wisconsin’s pro-choice majority must remain constantly vigilant – only Governor Doyle’s veto protects women in our state from these kinds of draconian efforts.
To request a copy of this important publication, please contact NARAL Wisconsin, an affiliate of NARAL Pro-Choice America, at 414-271-4811 or cemery@naralwi.org.
| 
