Beginning in October, Planned Parenthood has stopped its abortion services in Wisconsin. This is due to a new provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). The provision barred Planned Parenthood receiving Medicaid funding if they continued to perform abortion services in the state.
Previously, Medicaid dollars could not be used to pay for abortions. However, with the introduction of OBBA, the Trump administration stipulated that Planned Parenthood could not receive Medicaid dollars to cover other services if a clinic also performed abortions. As a result, Planned Parenthood has paused abortion procedures, but continues to perform other services, in Wisconsin as of October 1, 2025. In a statement, the agency said this measure would be temporary, but an exact plan for resuming services has not been announced.
Before 1973 abortion restrictions were up to the state. Wisconsin banned the practice from 1848 until the Supreme Court decided in Roe v. Wade to legalize abortion in all 50 states. In 2022, the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization so the power is back in state hands.
Prior to the OBBBA, there were 5 abortion clinics spread across Milwaukee, Madison, and Sheboygan. Now, there are only two open clinics in Wisconsin, Care for All and Affiliated Medical Services, both in Milwaukee and independently run. Since the new measure was introduced, 60% of clinics that formerly offered abortions can no longer provide those services.
Reacting to this change, reproductive rights groups such as Reproductive Justice Action Milwaukee (RJAM) saw increased numbers of people coming to them for support, according to RJAM Finance Chair Isa Gargiulo.
“[Until recently] Planned Parenthood received Medicaid funding to cover things like breast exams and birth control. Everything that they do could…you could get public dollars to cover that. But not abortion, that was never the case,” Gargiulo said. “In fact there is a policy called the Hyde Amendment that prevents any public dollars at all from being used for abortion services. Planned Parenthood never took public money for abortions to begin with. Now they had to stop offering abortions if they wanted to keep receiving Medicaid dollars for family planning and those other things. What the Big Beautiful Bill did was put them between a rock and a hard place”
Combined with other laws, the new restrictions create a more complex process that inhibits access to abortion. Pro-choice advocates argue that this law, because it is directly related to Medicaid funding, is meant to restrict lower income earners’ ability to access abortion services.
“[The law impacts] people who use Medicaid dollars for family planning. Those are families with low income, they tend to be people of color, people with immigrant status, [and] LGBTQ individuals who rely on Planned Parenthood for a lot of their care,” Gargiulo said. “So this will really affect the most vulnerable among us who Planned Parenthood is their main healthcare provider.”
In addition to these measures, Wisconsin has other stipulations in place if a pregnant person wishes to get an abortion. Statewide, abortion is illegal after 20 weeks with exceptions for rape or incest, there is a mandatory 24 waiting period before an appointment, and a mandatory ultrasound before the operation.
“There is nothing in the ultrasound that is particularly helpful for the reproductive health clinic. The ultrasound law mandates that the person administering the ultrasound has to face the screen towards the patient,” Gargiulo said. “They have to describe what’s in the screen, ‘this is the gestational sac, this is the placenta, this is your uterus’ because it’s kind of a psychological torture. A lot of people say it adds a layer of trauma. You don’t know why that person is having an abortion; it could be they were raped.”
According to Ali Muldrow, the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Abortion Fund (WAF), there are also long standing laws that put more holds on young people obtaining abortions.
“The other restriction I think is really important is that Wisconsin requires parental consent to get an abortion,” Muldrow said. “You can bypass parental consent if you get a lawyer…but there is real complexity to why it’s completely unfair and cruel to require parental consent of folks who need abortions.”
The other aspect of the Trump administration’s new stipulation is its economic impact on oftentimes already lower income earners. Costs of transportation, lodging, and taking time off of work can all be barriers to abortion care.
“If you live in Door County and you need to access services, you have to drive all the way to Milwaukee. If you’re in the Sheboygan area you used to have a local clinic, but not anymore. There’s a transportation hurdle, and it’s time off of work depending on how far you live,” Gargiulo said. “So it just adds obstacles and abortions are time sensitive. The earlier you can get it done, the better. It’s cheaper, it’s easier for recovery.”
Additionally, part of advocacy groups work after the pausing of these services is helping patients differentiate between clinics that offer abortion services and those that are anti-abortion.
“There are these entities called pregnancy research centers and they mimic women’s health clinics, and they often pull people in who are unsuspecting passersby who believe they are going into a family planning clinic,” Gargiulo said. “The goal of these facilities is to dissuade people from getting hormonal birth control, for example. They oftentimes have a faith based agenda, but they are protected under the first amendment. Because of the confusion with Planned Parenthood right now, many people are gonna walk into one of those clinics and think ‘maybe here I can get the abortion I need’ but that’s not true. It looks very innocent but once you’re there you are going to be fed information such as abortion causes breast cancer, it causes infertility, abortion is gonna cause depression, and a host of other lies that are dangerous for people.”
Muldrow explained that although the new provision is not ideal, abortion access in the past has been stricter, so organizations like hers are used to working under the stress of an influx of people seeking support.
“In 2022 we lost access to abortion entirely in the state of Wisconsin for 411 days and so our organization has always had to do our work in a restrictive environment that promotes medical negligence,” Muldrow said “We have always had to do this work in environments that are highly politicized, and in some ways we are deeply prepared for this moment and help people get to Minnesota, and Illinois, or Milwaukee if that’s what they need to do.”
In addition, Muldrow believes the lack of options doesn’t just impact people economically, but it can endanger their health.
“The number one cause of death during pregnancy isn’t preeclampsia, it’s homicide. Being pregnant in our society is tremendously dangerous,” Muldrow said. “It is really scary to think that folks who are in really dangerous relationships, whose health can be impacted in really profound ways have really limited options across the state of Wisconsin right now.”
Given that abortion is an already controversial issue, the new OBBBA restriction is being celebrated as a victory for some, but a strong setback for others. Leslie J. Harris, a Shorewood parent and resident, is opposed to the way the restriction overrides states’ power to decide this issue for themselves.
“I think it’s deeply unethical that there was federal legislation that would put people’s healthcare at risk, especially as the Trump administration was when they were campaigning and pushing to eliminate the Constitutional protection for abortion rights. They said that it should be a state’s issue,” Harris said. “The state of Wisconsin has not passed a law that is banning abortion. The state of Wisconsin is saying that abortion should be legal and that people should have access to health care. But now, despite all the talk that the Trump administration gave when they were working to overturn this as a constitutional right (saying that it should go to the states) they passed a legislation that, in effect, takes the decision away from the states. And so it reveals that there really isn’t respect for women’s healthcare, and it’s going to put people’s lives in danger.”
Harris also expressed concern for the pausing of Planned Parenthood’s chances of affecting more vulnerable populations than others.
“[Planned Parenthood facilities] are the place in some communities where people have access to health care because there’s not a lot of access to other healthcare facilities, and it also serves a really broad population,” Harris said. “People who have money can go out of state … .But because Planned Parenthood is pausing, these healthcare services are going to put the most vulnerable people at risk.”
Although Planned Parenthood says this a temporary measure, there has been no official statement about plans to resume abortion services. The organization is involved in several lawsuits across the federal government across several states challenging the Trump administration’s actions.
“Unless a judge comes and strikes it down and says, ‘no actually planned parenthood can receive Medicaid dollars and provide abortions’ we don’t know [when it will continue],” Gargiulo said. “All that goes to say, it’s a big unknown at the moment.”