Two women who say they were harmed by abortion restrictions that took effect after the 2022 Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade are on the campaign trail for the Biden-Harris ticket.
Tuesday, that trail led to the north side of Milwaukee where the women took part in a reproductive rights discussion at the venue Coffee Makes You Black.
Kaitlyn Joshua of Louisiana and Amanda Zurawski of Texas say they couldn’t get the timely medical help they needed during their pregnancies after the Supreme Court ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson case. That’s the ruling that led Wisconsin abortion providers, under pressure from conservatives who cited an 1849 state law, to halt almost all abortion procedures in Wisconsin for about fifteen months.
Planned Parenthood resumed performing abortions last fall following a Dane County judge refusing to throw out a challenge to the law filed by Democrats. The judge, Diane Schlipper, later ruled the 1849 law does not apply to consensual abortion. Her decision is being appealed.
Zurawski told the roundtable discussion that she believes she and Wisconsin residents have something in common.
“People here have seen firsthand what happens when you have Republican politicians who insist on inserting themselves in personal health care decisions," she says.
Zurawski and Joshua contend that electing presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump this fall would open the door to a national abortion ban or that Trump’s stated support for state laws restricting abortion could again lead to Wisconsin halting the procedure. That’s especially if conservatives seize control of the State Supreme Court in next spring’s election to replace retiring liberal justice Ann Walsh Bradley.
So, Joshua says abortion rights supporters should back Democrat Joe Biden in November.
“Right now, there’s kind of a slippery slope as to whether the states will be able to decide themselves, if that will remain, or if we are going to try to restore Roe. And we do know a Biden-Harris Administration is seeking to restore Roe, which is the safest place to be in this country, is under the jurisdiction and legislation that Roe provides," Joshua says.
The Wisconsin Republican Party sent WUWM to the Trump campaign for reaction. But we didn’t hear back. Last week, Trump said he would not sign a national abortion ban if it reached his desk but continued to take credit for appointing U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The message from the visitors to Coffee Makes You Black was well received by the other roundtable participants. Among them, Dalvery Blackwell, who is executive director of the African American Breastfeeding Network in Milwaukee.
“This abortion issue is policing our bodies, policing our decision-making, and dictating how we should actually live, " Blackwell says.
Blackwell says she’s ready to vote for Biden but says she has to work on some other members of her extended family who are considering Trump.
