KEY POINTS

• Speaker Vos said on Tuesday he is willing to require women (any age) to have a police report to prove they have been victims of sexual assault or incest before obtaining an abortion.
• Providers across Wisconsin have stopped offering abortions since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
• Governor Evers is seeking to overturn the ban.
• Tony Evers vetoed countless pro-life bills, including one that would provide basic medical care to babies who are victims of botched abortions and are born alive. 
• Speaker Robin Vos commented during an interview that he would support amending the state law to include exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.

Assembly Speaker Vos said on Tuesday he is willing to require women (any age) to have a police report to prove they have been victims of sexual assault or incest before obtaining an abortion. 

Providers across Wisconsin have stopped offering abortions since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. Shortly after that ruling was announced, Tanya Atkinson, President & CEO of Planned Parenthood of WI, shared a video message. She stated that the agency had been immediately forced to suspend abortion services. 

In the same video, Atkinson said, “Today, our daughters have less rights than their mothers, less rights than their grandmothers. This is absolutely unconscionable. People should be able to make their own health care decisions; it should not be political.”

Governor Evers is seeking to overturn the ban. He proudly expresses that pro-life bills are not welcome in his ultra-progressive vision of Wisconsin. Tony Evers vetoed countless pro-life bills and has promised to keep turning them away, including one that would provide basic medical care to babies who are victims of botched abortions and are born alive. 

The Governor has also vetoed a bill that would inform women of alternatives to abortion. One of the bills would educate women on the chance that the mifepristone drug regimen may not result in an immediate abortion and that there is a chance to reverse it after the first dose. 

Another bill would offer supportive resources for women who decide to continue their pregnancies. Evers has also vetoed a bill that would protect babies from being aborted due to race or sex. 

Speaker Robin Vos commented during an interview that he would support amending the state law to include exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. A possible solution would be requiring women and girls to get a police report to prove that they are victims of incest or sexual assault to obtain an abortion. 

Ian Henderson, policy and systems director of the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, commented about the idea, “If the only way to access abortion is for a victim of sexual violence to report to law enforcement, they’re going to have to engage with a system that most survivors don’t want to engage with. Sexual violence is about domination and control, and accessing the full range of reproductive health care (and) accessing abortion services is a way of restoring decision-making power, so any limitation on that is restricting someone’s bodily autonomy.”

Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard said requiring rape victims to obtain permission to get an abortion is “cruel and unusual punishment.” She also said, “We do know that the overwhelming number of sexual assaults that occur are not reported, and forcing a person who has experienced sexual assault or rape or incest to report that trauma when they’re not ready to be able to face this flies in the face of all evidence-based policy making.”

Senate Majority Leader LeMahieu commented about the issue, “I am currently working on meeting individually with the caucus and our five new Senate members to get everyone’s perspective before the session this January. As of now, I am not sure where the entire caucus stands on this specific issue, but I look forward to continuing my conversations on this topic and more with them.”

Speaker Robin Vos said he wants Republican lawmakers to make policy and campaign more in line with what most voters think about the issue. He said, “Having a discussion about where society is and making sure that we are in tune with the majority of society is important because we have to work on winning the culture war, but we also have to work on making sure that we have a position that is enabled and that makes sense to the vast majority of people.”