Wisconsin medical board complaint seeks to bar doctors from performing abortions

An anti-abortion advocate has filed complaints with the state's medical examining board against doctors who provide abortions weeks after Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin resumed doing the procedure in Madison and Milwaukee.

The complaints are the latest effort by abortion foes to try to regain leverage in the fight over abortion after a Dane County judge ruled this summer that an 1849 law widely perceived as banning the procedure only applied to feticide, not consensual abortions.

Last week, abortion-rights opponents held a press conference in the state Capitol urging the Dane and Milwaukee County district attorneys to prosecute providers, noting the judge's ruling wasn't final.

"They're violating the law ... their medical malpractice insurance is no good," said Pro-Life Wisconsin state director Dan Miller, who filed the complaints on Sept. 28 against Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, its medical director Dr. Kathy King, and OB-GYN Dr. Kristin Lyerly. "I'm looking for a swift decision on this."

Lyerly said she hasn't provided any abortions in Wisconsin since Planned Parenthood resumed doing the procedure in the state.

Read the complaint

"I'm delivering babies in Minnesota," Lyerly said. "I'm not providing any OB-GYN care in Wisconsin."

Miller said it was hard to find who was providing abortions for Planned Parenthood.

Complaints filed with the Department of Safety and Professional Services' Medical Examining Board can be dismissed after an initial review or lead to legal action that could trigger sanctions up to revoking a practitioner's license.

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The chair of the agency's Medical Examining Board, Sheldon Wasserman, is an abortion rights advocate who's also a plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to reinstate abortion rights statewide.

While Planned Parenthood resumed providing abortions after Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper's ruling in July, it said it is still operating under another Wisconsin law that bans abortions 20 weeks after "probable fertilization."

"Any complaints based on PPWI's resumption of abortion services, and against the physicians providing that care, are frivolous and politically motivated," Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin spokesperson Analiese Eicher said, adding that Schlipper was clear in her July ruling that the 1849 law doesn't apply to abortions.

The clinics' reopening for abortions marked a major win for liberals and abortion rights supporters, 15 months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade led to the immediate suspension of abortion services statewide.

Decision expected soon

Planned Parenthood's decision to resume doing abortions came about 15 months after Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court alleging the 1849 ban didn't apply to abortions because later laws conflicted with it.

Separately, physicians who intervened as plaintiffs in the lawsuit alleged that a Wisconsin Supreme Court case already made clear that the 1849 law applied to feticide, not abortion.

The defendants in the ongoing lawsuit are the prosecutors in the counties where abortion was widely available before the decision overturning Roe: Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne and Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm.

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Urmanski unsuccessfully sought to dismiss the lawsuit earlier this year, saying the plaintiffs lacked standing in the case.

A final ruling in the case is expected sometime in the next few weeks.