What a second Trump term means for reproductive rights in Wisconsin

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office for the second time, advocates are sounding the alarm on what a Trump presidency and a Republican majority in both houses of the U.S. Congress will mean for abortion rights.

Tanya Atkinson, the president of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, told the Wisconsin Independent that Republicans have already sown confusion around reproductive health, but that she’s also concerned the Trump administration will target access to birth control and in vitro fertilization and implement a national abortion ban.

Abortion is currently legal in Wisconsin up to 20 weeks of pregnancy. But in 2020, after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, providers stopped doing abortions for 15 months under a law dating back to 1849 that was interpreted as banning abortion. In 2023, a Dane County judge ruled that the law banned feticide and not abortion. The Wisconsin Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Nov. 11 in a lawsuit challenging the pre-Civil War era law and is expected to rule in the suit in the coming weeks. 

“There’s a lot of things that they could do in addition to a national abortion ban, which they’ve been pretty clear they’re interested in,” Atkinson said. “But there’s also a lot of the other reproductive health services, there’s both administrative and legislative latitude for them to make a significant impact.”

Under Title X of the Public Health Service Act, low-cost family planning services are funded for minors without parental consent. Atkinson said that funding could be eliminated under a Trump presidency.

“I think access to contraceptives is a concern. Whether they put the gag rule back in, the Title X, the federal family planning legislation, certainly we’ve seen that go back and forth over different administrations,” Atkinson said.

Rachel Rebouché, the dean of the Beasley School of Law at Temple University, said that the incoming Trump administration could also use the Department of Justice to enforce the Comstock Act, a federal law dating back to 1873 that criminalizes the mailing of anything that could be used in an abortion. The punishment for violating the law is a fine, imprisonment for up to five years, or both. 

Mary Ziegler, a professor at the University of California Davis School of Law, warned in a July interview with the Michigan Independent that the anti-abortion movement could use “fetal personhood” laws to justify making IVF illegal. 

“The anti-abortion movement argued that the word ‘person’ in the 14th Amendment applied the moment an egg was fertilized. And then they further argued that that meant liberal laws on things like abortion and IVF were in fact unconstitutional. … So the GOP platform is basically the nod to personhood. It’s very clear to people in the know. This is a goal that the anti-abortion movement has been pursuing for decades.”

In the Nov. 5 election, voters returned incumbent Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin to office, as well as Democrat Reps. Gwen Moore and Mark Pocan. Although Republicans maintained control of the Wisconsin State Legislature, Atkinson said, because of gains under new and more fair legislative district boundaries, Democrats will have a chance to make a competitive run for a majority in 2026. 

Should the balance of the legislature change, Atkinson said, the state is “poised in 2026 to have a pro-reproductive freedom, pro-birth control, pro-reproductive health Legislature.” 

According to Atkinson, in the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022, there’ve been fewer patients accessing reproductive care at Planned Parenthood clinics, largely because they’re confused about what’s open and what services are being provided. 

“We need to push back against the confusion and make sure that people are getting the care that they need,” Atkinson said, adding that rates of sexually transmitted infections have skyrocketed since Dobbs. 

Atkinson said the fact that the larger conservative movement has used reproductive health care as a wedge in elections means that Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has to be more committed than ever to an initiative that would enshrine abortion in the state constitution. 

“For Planned Parenthood, the long game, state and federal, has been and continues to be guaranteeing the constitutional right to bodily autonomy,” Atkinson said. “In Wisconsin, a medium-long game, and this is why it’s really critical that people engage in legislative accountability and elections, is because the gold standard will be to get a constitutional amendment passed.” 

In 2025, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin will celebrate its 90th anniversary in the state, and Atkinson said she’s seen more abortion rights activists engaged lately than in all of her 20 years working as a community organizer. 

“I think people understand that it’s not just abortion. … People understand that it’s really about bodily agency and autonomy,” Atkinson said.