Republicans pass abortion restrictions as some get behind making birth control easier to get

MADISON - Republicans in the state Assembly on Wednesday passed a slate of bills aimed at further restricting access to abortions while some are also backing legislation that would make birth control easier to get.   

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and at least three Republican lawmakers are backing legislation that would allow pharmacists to prescribe hormonal birth control.

"It’s a little out there for our caucus — usually we don’t venture into things like this," bill co-author Rep. Joel Kitchens of Sturgeon Bay said, acknowledging some Republicans' moral opposition to contraceptives. "But it really follows our principle of limited government." 

In Wisconsin, hormonal birth control is only available through a doctor's prescription — a barrier Republican lawmakers proposing the bill say is artificial given birth control cannot become addictive or requires a doctor's oversight.

"We are introducing the (bill) to give women more choices with their reproductive health care and to reduce unplanned pregnancies," the bill authors wrote. 

Republicans on Wednesday also passed a separate bill that would eliminate the last bit of public funding available to Planned Parenthood, an abortion provider that also provides contraceptives and health care for women.

Kitchens said he did not initially seek Democratic authors on the bill allowing pharmacists to prescribe birth control in order to give the legislation a better chance at passing the Republican-controlled Legislature.

He said libertarian lawmakers should get behind the proposal because they "should trust people to make their own decisions." 

"Republicans have done everything in their power to make it harder to get birth control," Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison, said. "This is not something we have seen — we have not seen in my tenure one thing from Republicans that support access to birth control."

The bill is being circulated for support as the Republican-controlled Assembly passed a set of bills Wednesday that would add more restrictions to women's access to abortions as Democrats objected, arguing Republicans should instead get behind Gov. Tony Evers' proposal to dedicate $28 million to reduce infant mortality, specifically in low-income communities. 

The action comes a day after the Alabama state Senate passed a bill criminalizing abortion in nearly all cases, approving the most sweeping restrictions on the procedure in the United States and almost certainly guaranteeing a legal challenge.

The Alabama legislation is framed as an explicit attempt to challenge Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down state bans on abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy.

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"The timing can't be lost on us," Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, said about the birth control bill. "It almost seems a little defensive."

'Born Alive' bill

At the same time, Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin and across the country are handing their Democratic governors legislation that could send doctors to prison for life if they did not provide medical care to babies who survive failed abortions.

Republican lawmakers in the Assembly passed the measure Wednesday over Democrats' objection and with one Republican lawmaker voting against it.

Rep. Chuck Wichgers, R-Muskego, opposed the bill because it does not provide penalties for the mother of babies who are not provided medical care after a failed abortion attempt. 

Democrats said the bill is rooted in a false premise and is meant to incite division.

"It will stymie, once again, physicians and providers from appropriate and timely care to mothers and their pregnancies," Rep. Debra Kolste, D-Janesville, said Wednesday. "It will disallow compassionate, palliative care to a mother and her baby when a medical catastrophe happens."

Bill author Rep. Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, said the bill does not restrict a doctor-patient relationship because it addresses the rights of the baby, not the mother.

"This bill is about caring for babies that survive abortions and take that first breath of life," he said. "The patient is not the mother. The patient is the child. Once that child is born and takes a breath — the mother is out of the picture."

Doctors and other critics say the proposal isn't needed because such situations are rare and provides the false impression that doctors aren't providing care to infants who could live if medical attention is received.

Abortion opponents say the state must ensure there are specific penalties for not caring for an infant born after a failed abortion. 

The measure, Assembly Bill 179, would require doctors and nurses present during a failed abortion attempt to provide hospital care to the child. Intentionally causing the child's death could result in life in prison. 

Evers has said he would veto the bill, saying it's unnecessary and that lawmakers who wrote it are trying to divide people. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said his house will likely take up the bill in June. 

Mirrors GOP bills elsewhere

The abortion legislation mirrors a bill Democrats in the U.S. Senate blocked in February and includes language Republican-controlled legislatures across the country are handing their Democratic governors. 

The bills are, in part, a response to a Pennsylvania doctor who ran an abortion clinic and was convicted of murder in 2013 for killing babies after botched abortions. 

Later-term abortions are banned in Wisconsin under a 2015 law.

Another measure Republicans passed Wednesday, Assembly Bill 182, would ban women from seeking an abortion because of the race, sex or disability of a fetus, as long as the disability is considered compatible with life.

Democrats are contrasting the abortion bills with Republican opposition to Evers' plan to expand health care under the Affordable Care Act for women's health and other programs. Evers' proposal would allow Planned Parenthood to receive more taxpayer funding for family planning services — an idea opposed by Republicans because the group is the nation's largest abortion provider. 

Another measure, Assembly Bill 180, would require doctors to inform women that they could continue their pregnancy if they act quickly after taking the first dose of a two-drug regimen that causes abortion. That bill would also require the state to make public the names of hospitals and clinics where abortions had been provided.

'Marsy's Law' passes Legislature

Also Wednesday, the Senate and Assembly passed an amendment to the state constitution that provides a set of rights to victims of crime.

The amendment, known as Marsy's Law, is named after Marsy Nicholas of California, who was murdered by her former boyfriend in 1983. The amendment will be up to voters for final approval next year.

The ex-boyfriend confronted Nicholas' family in a grocery store a week after her death, at a time when the family did not know he had been released on bail.

Nicholas' billionaire brother, Henry T. Nicholas III, has led a national effort to give crime victims and their families more rights and has funded the Wisconsin campaign to amend the state constitution, which began in 2017.

The measure is similar to ones that have been adopted in Illinois, California, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Constitutional amendments in Wisconsin must be passed by the Legislature in two consecutive legislative sessions and then by voters in a statewide referendum. Lawmakers passed it in 2017 and approval Wednesday would put the measure up for referendum in April 2020 for final approval. 

The measure passed the Senate 27-5 and 82-15 in the Assembly.

The proposal has broad support among Democratic and Republican lawmakers and more than 250 county sheriffs and police chiefs. Some statewide victim advocacy groups have supported the measure as well.

In 1980, Wisconsin became the first state in the country to adopt a "crime victim bill of rights" and in 1993 adopted a constitutional amendment to afford victims privacy and ensure they are kept abreast of their cases.

The Marsy's Law proposal would strengthen some of the rights guaranteed in state law by writing them into the state constitution.

RELATED:Wisconsin Elections Commission names new leader after John Doe probe fight

Also Wednesday, the Senate unanimously confirmed Meagan Wolfe as head of the Wisconsin Elections Commission through 2023. Commissioners named her to the post in 2018 after Republican senators rejected Michael Haas as elections director because they were frustrated by an investigation of former Gov. Scott Walker that the state Supreme Court shut down.  

Haas continues to work at the commission as a staff attorney.

The Senate also unanimously approved a bill to create a clearinghouse to reduce barriers for financial trading of so-called "credits" that represent reductions in water pollution.

The impetus is to give polluters incentives to use markets to reduce water pollution, particularly in agricultural areas where farms are under growing pressure to limit nutrients like phosphorus from overwhelming lakes and streams. 

The Republican bill has support of many farms groups and some environmental organizations. 

The bill would create a third party to facilitate trading. In a typical trade, a wastewater plant or factory would meet pollution reduction goals by funding projects on farms that would limit manure and fertilizer from running off the land. 

Lawmakers in the Assembly also passed a measure that would allow judges to seal more records of low-level criminal offenses — a measure aimed at helping thousands of people find jobs and secure housing.     

Wisconsin is the only state in the country that requires judges to decide at sentencing whether someone is eligible to eventually have their criminal record expunged. 

Under the bill passed Wednesday, judges could decide after offenders complete their sentences whether to keep their criminal records from being easily obtained by the public. 

Patrick Marley and Lee Bergquist of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

Contact Molly Beck at molly.beck@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MollyBeck.