MADISON, Wis. — On the fourth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Democratic Party of Wisconsin 1st Vice Chair Sarah Godlewski released the following statement:
“Four years ago today, Donald Trump’s hand-picked Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision, which stripped Americans of federal protections for abortion under Roe v. Wade. Wisconsinites, suddenly, were subject to a law from 1849 which all but outlawed abortion entirely throughout the state.
“Women throughout the state were forced to live under a law created by lawmakers they did not elect and who had long passed, and under pseudoscience from the 19th century. The consequences of this were devastating and had wide-reaching ripple effects: Many Wisconsinites had no choice but to travel hundreds of miles out of state including for life-saving care, patients and providers faced threats of criminalization, applications for Wisconsin medical residency programs decreased significantly, and reproductive healthcare clinics shuttered their doors.
“While Republicans in our Legislature and Congress championed this outcome, Democrats strategized. Wisconsin Democrats spent the past four years fighting for long-term protections—we elected a pro-democracy majority to our State Supreme Court that ruled in favor of restoring reproductive freedoms, and defeated extreme anti-abortion legislatures who wanted to codify the most restrictive abortion bans. But we are nowhere near done yet.
“The fight continues this November at the ballot box. We need to ensure Tom Tiffany, who has supported a bill to ban abortion before most women even know they are pregnant and without exceptions for rape and incest, is not elected Governor. We also have the chance to flip the Wisconsin Legislature and elect candidates who will write laws that protect our reproductive rights.
“Wisconsin Republicans spent years scheming to take away our rights, and Democrats have spent years fighting to restore them, election by election. It’s time to stop relying on court decisions and elect Democratic majorities in the Legislature that will finally put reproductive freedom into law and protect it for years to come.”
