Health
Chicago-Area Abortion Advocates Anticipate Increase in Patients if Wisconsin Supreme Court Flips
Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates Brad Schimel and Susan Crawford participate in a debate Wednesday, March 12, 2025, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo / Morry Gash)
Chicago Abortion Fund Executive Director Megan Jeyifo is originally from Milwaukee, where she had an abortion at 16 years old.
Jeyifo said she knows firsthand the importance of abortion access and that those seeking abortions have support throughout the process.
“I ended up having to have an abortion much later in pregnancy than I would have liked,” Jeyifo said. “I knew I wanted an abortion, but I didn’t know where to go ... I didn’t know there were resources like [abortion funds] available.”
Chicago-area abortion providers and organizations that support people seeking abortions, such as the Chicago Abortion Fund, are among those nationwide closely watching Tuesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race and how it could impact abortion access in the state.
The results of the Wisconsin election will determine whether the court will remain under 4-3 liberal control or flip to a conservative majority, serving as an indicator of who could hold power over the fate of legal cases regarding abortion in the state.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to revive an abortion ban from 1849, which criminalizes “the willful killing of an unborn quick child.”
Chicago-area abortion providers and abortion fund groups have already been seeing more people from Wisconsin traveling to Illinois to seek abortions after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022, which overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the constitutional right to an abortion.
Before Roe v. Wade was overturned, abortion care provider Family Planning Associates Medical Group in the West Loop saw an average of 33 patients from Wisconsin per month. Right after the overturning, that number nearly tripled to 115 Wisconsin patients per month after abortion health care services became unavailable in the state.
“If the Wisconsin Supreme Court has a conservative majority, there is a prediction, that I think is pretty accurate, that abortion providers in Wisconsin will be further restricted in the care that they can provide,” said Dr. Allison Cowett, the group’s medical director. “We would expect to see the number of patients coming from Wisconsin rise back up to the level that we saw immediately post-Dobbs.”
In late 2023, Wisconsin resumed its abortion care services and Family Planning Associates saw its average number of patients from the state fall to about 73 per month. Cowett said the numbers didn’t fall back to pre-Dobbs levels due to the lasting impact of those disruptions to abortion care services.
Wisconsin also has restrictions such as a gestational age ban, a mandatory waiting period, parental consent and restrictions on public aid covering abortion.
A sign along a street in Milwaukee, Wis., Tuesday, March 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)
Family Planning Associates, which provides services such as procedural abortion and medication abortion, has seen an increase in patients from throughout the country post-Dobbs. About one in three of its patients are from out of state, Cowett said.
The clinic has increased patient appointments, expanded its clinic space and hired more clinical and administrative staff to better meet patient needs, according to Cowett.
“So, the rate-limiting step for care, we have not found it to be our availability of appointments or staff or funding, really, it has been the fact that it’s very difficult for people to upend their lives and travel many hours and, sometimes, remaining overnight in Chicagoland for care,” Cowett said. “This is just a burden that people do not need to be shouldering.”
Illinois serves as the epicenter of abortion access due to its location in the middle of the country, fewer restrictions for abortion care and providers expanding availability, according to Jeyifo.
The Chicago Abortion Fund, which has been around for 40 years, provides financial, emotional and logistical support to people seeking abortion care, in addition to doing advocacy work to shape policy around abortion access.
In doing this work, the organization partners closely with providers, advocates, volunteers, elected leaders and other abortion funds in the country, including a close partnership with the Wisconsin Abortion Fund.
The Chicago Abortion Fund fielded calls from less than 20 Wisconsinites each month on average pre-Dobbs to about 70 per month immediately after Dobbs, according to Jeyifo.
Even after the state’s abortion ban was lifted, Jeyifo said her organization continued to see the number increase and it is currently fielding requests from about 90 people from Wisconsin per month.
If the Wisconsin Supreme Court flips conservative and upholds the 1849 abortion ban, Jeyifo believes Wisconsin patients will be relying even more on Illinois for care. Wisconsinites are already “coming in droves” to Illinois to access abortion care on a daily basis, Jeyifo said.
“I’m less concerned about Illinois providers being able to handle this and more concerned with the emotional and physical and financial toll this takes on people who are forced to travel for care,” Jeyifo said. “I think that’s really, to me, as someone who had to jump through hoops, and had to get an abortion without emotional support, without financial support – what is that lifelong trauma? What are we making people go through?”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Contact Eunice Alpasan: [email protected]
