SHEBOYGAN — Leaders with Planned Parenthood are working fast to move doctors who provide abortion care to their Sheboygan clinic.
That’s after a court ruling Tuesday restored abortion access across Wisconsin.
Leaders with Planned Parenthood would not provide an exact timeline of when abortion care will be available again in Sheboygan but say it would be medication abortions only at that location. Planned Parenthood also provides abortion services in Milwaukee and Dane Counties.
We spoke to people who live in Sheboygan who view abortion in starkly different terms.
This includes Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmansky. After Roe versus Wade was overturned last year, Urmansky vowed to sue anyone who violated Wisconsin’s abortion ban enacted in 1848. Attorney Josh Kaul sued him and two other district attorneys. On Tuesday, a Dane County Judge sided with Kaul. She ruled the 1849 law refers only to ‘feticide’ not abortion. Feticide is defined as “the act of killing a fetus by assaulting and battering the mother.”
Pro-abortion activists stood outside Urmansky’s office, demanding that he not file an appeal.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin’s Marianne Radley Wellhouse said, “He’s essentially making himself unavailable, not taking phone calls from the folks that he serves in this county, and were pretty disappointed with his lack of communication.”
Urmansky would not talk to us on camera Thursday but said in a statement he will appeal but will abide by the judge’s ruling for now.
Attorney Michelle Velasquez, who is Planned Parenthood’s chief strategy officer says taking away abortion access, puts a cost on women, “For folks let's say from Milwaukee — leaving to have an abortion in Wisconsin is about $1,200 and the average American can't afford an unexpected expense over $500.”
But right across the street from Planned Parenthood in Sheboygan is a different organization, which has support from Pro-Life Wisconsin: Anchor of Hope Health Center.
Its CEO Jacky Drewry says this year alone, they helped about 450 pregnant women learn about the adoption process, parenting, and abortion options with no judgment.
“It is the woman's choice," Drewry said.
Drewry said their organization will never provide abortions but does offer free healthcare such as ultrasounds, “Which tells you is there fetal cardiac activity, it tells you how far along that pregnancy is.”
With people passionate on both sides of the issue, the case is expected to make its way in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
