MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The Wisconsin Assembly on Wednesday is anticipated to go a Republican-authored, bipartisan invoice opposed by anti-abortion teams that will enable pharmacists to prescribe and dispense contraception.
The GOP-controlled Assembly handed the measure with broad bipartisan assist final session, but it surely died within the Senate. Its sponsor, Republican Rep. Joel Kitchens, has mentioned he’s optimistic it would get a Senate vote this session.
This marks the primary time the invoice has come up since Wisconsin’s 1849 legislation banning abortion went again into impact after final 12 months’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. Republicans and their anti-abortion allies, who suffered a sequence of defeats in poll questions in states throughout the political spectrum since that ruling, are tackling the difficulty nationwide in a wide range of methods.
In addition to the pharmacist contraception invoice, Wisconsin Republicans additionally launched a measure that will create rape and incest exceptions beneath that state’s abortion ban. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has vowed to veto something that doesn’t return state legislation to the way it was earlier than Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Evers backs a lawsuit introduced by the state’s Democratic legal professional normal that seeks to overturn the state ban. That case is anticipated to finally be determined by the state’s Supreme Court, which flips from conservative to liberal management in August. The profitable liberal Supreme Court candidate in an April election ran as a supporter of abortion rights.
Republicans behind the invoice permitting pharmacists to prescribe and dispense widespread contraception capsules and hormonal contraceptive patches say it’s a solution to stop extra undesirable pregnancies. Under present legislation, ladies can solely acquire most contraception via a prescription written by a physician or superior follow nurse.
The measure, which Democrats have launched up to now, has bipartisan assist within the Assembly. But it’s unclear whether or not the Senate will take it up. It should go each the Senate and Assembly, and be signed by Evers, earlier than taking impact. Republican Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu didn’t instantly return an electronic mail searching for remark.
“I certainly am pessimistic about that bill making it through the Senate,” mentioned Democratic state Rep. Lisa Subeck, who joined with fellow Democrats in proposing a invoice Wednesday that will make entry to contraception a proper beneath state legislation. “It certainly seems to be a showpiece for Assembly Republicans that they can’t get their Senate colleagues to buy into.”
Evers helps the invoice and would signal it into legislation ought to it go the Legislature, his spokesperson Britt Cudaback mentioned.
A big selection of teams assist the measure, together with the Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin chapter of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Wisconsin Association of Local Health Departments and Boards, the Wisconsin Public Health Association and the Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association.
Opponents embody Pro-Life Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Catholic Conference and Wisconsin Family Action.
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