Wisconsin Medical Society leaders tell members it's time to reach out to lawmakers about abortion access, dip into their pockets

MADISON - Wisconsin Medical Society leaders are asking health care providers to reach out to lawmakers and “put their money where their mouth is,” with the first election since the overturning of Roe v. Wade less than a month away.

“It is always hard for me to say, but it is politics. It is a game,” said Dr. Wendy Molaska, president of the Wisconsin Medical Society, which includes 10,000 members. “Unfortunately this is how the game is played. We need to put our money where our mouth is."

Molaska said it is imperative for doctors to reach out to lawmakers — especially Republican lawmakers and lawmakers in rural communities — to explain how the overturning of Roe v. Wade is not only compromising the physician-patient relationship but the ripple effect it may have on the state's workforce, specifically doctors no longer  wanting to practice in the state.

“We have to be open to playing both sides of the aisle. We have to work on talking to our Republican legislators as much as our Democratic legislators,” she said.

Dr. Jerry Halverson, board chair of the Wisconsin Medical Society, said a “cornerstone of advocacy is helping to safeguard the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship.”

“Any interference to that relationship should be looked at with great skepticism,” Halverson said. “And today’s topic certainly can be considered a prime example of the government driving a dramatic wedge into one of the most personal areas of someone’s health care, reproductive medicine.”

The comments from the board chair and president of the Wisconsin Medical Society came during a Tuesday panel of legal and medical professionals who took part in a discussion on patient care and the legal landscape following the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, which provided patients a federally protected legal right to abortion access.

The Supreme Court's ruling has created a “legally gray area” for Wisconsin doctors, said panel members. That is another reason Wisconsin Medical Society leaders are encouraging health care providers to get active by talking to lawmakers or donating to candidates or political action committees prior to the November election.

That gray area stems from a law passed in 1849 that makes it a felony for someone to intentionally destroy the life of a fetus, said Diane Welsh, an attorney with Madison-based Pines Bach. The only exception is to preserve the life of a pregnant patient.

Welsh said a woman cannot be criminally charged for seeking an abortion or performing her own abortion.

Whether or not the 173-year-old law is now the law in Wisconsin is the biggest question facing health care providers, Welsh said.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul and Gov. Tony Evers, both Democrats, filed a lawsuit that challenges the old ban and calls it "unenforceable." The case is pending.

"We don’t know if it's enforceable," Welsh said. "That leaves a predicament for health care providers who don’t want to be hauled off to jail to await a criminal trial, while lawyers or judges or legislators figure out what the law is or what it means."

For that reason, the state's four abortion clinics immediately closed following the Supreme Court's June ruling.

"From a practical standpoint, it has had a chilling effect," Welsh said. "Most providers in the state that I’m aware of are choosing to operate as if there could be criminal enforcement — even if they don’t believe it should be enforced."

Angela Rust, an attorney with von Briesen & Roper in Milwaukee, said the criminal statute of limitations in Wisconsin is six years.

Rust said this creates concern for doctors — even in counties with district attorneys who say they will not enforce the old law — from performing the procedure.

Evers said he would pardon or grant clemency if doctors are prosecuted under the state's 1849 abortion law. Both these scenarios presume that the same elected officials will be in office in six years or that prosecutions would happen immediately, Welsh said.

"There is a six-year window (to prosecute)," Welsh said. "That is not adequate comfort for providers to move forward and practice as they always have."

The November election could flip the governor's and the attorney general's seats, replacing Evers and Barnes with Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels and Attorney General candidate Eric Toney.

Michels has said he would sign legislation creating exceptions to Wisconsin's abortion law for rape and incest, despite opposing such exceptions for at least two decades.

Toney has said he wouldn't rule out using state Department of Justice resources to prosecute abortions, even in cases of rape and incest.

Prior to the overturning of Roe v Wade, abortions were legal in Wisconsin up to 20 weeks. Molaska said the point of fetal viability is generally between 22 and 24 weeks.

In general terms, the Wisconsin Medical Society's policy concerning abortion says that an abortion should be considered a "legal, evidence-based procedure."

Molaska said she didn't want to attach a specific time frame for how long abortions should be legally allowed in Wisconsin but said she'd want to see something passed that codified a physician being able to provide "evidence-based medicine where appropriate." It is part of reproductive health, she added.

"If your morals or your beliefs say abortion is wrong, please don’t provide abortions as a provider," Molaska said. "We don’t want to force providers to provide abortions, but we do want our physicians to be able to provide them, if they are comfortable with it."

Jessica Van Egeren can be reached at jvanegeren@gannett.com or (920) 213-5695. 

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Medical Society: November elections key to abortion access