Illinois elected officials and abortion providers foresee an influx of Wisconsin patients after the state’s Planned Parenthood branch announced Wednesday it would pause abortions Oct. 1 while it faces losing Medicaid funding as a result of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax law.
Providers and abortion-rights advocates joined Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, state Sen. Robert Peters and state Rep. Kelly Cassidy Thursday to voice support for Planned Parenthood and welcome patients from Wisconsin seeking an abortion.
The number of patients traveling from Wisconsin to get abortions at Family Planning Associates in Chicago has directly correlated to court decisions on abortion access in Wisconsin, according to Dr. Allison Cowett, chief medical officer at Family Planning Associates. Cowett said she’s heard out-of-state patients share their frustration and anger that they have to travel to find access to an abortion.
“They come by car, by bus and by plane to Illinois — the single mom who works, cares for her children and takes classes online in the evenings to finish her bachelor’s degree; the high school student who arrives in Illinois with her parents, both of them looking toward her future,” Cowett said.
The provision banning abortion funding was part of the federal budget reconciliation bill President Donald Trump signed into law in July. It was designed to exclude abortion providers from receiving Medicaid reimbursement, despite federal money not being used to finance abortions.
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in July blocking the abortion-related provision from being enforced, but an appeals court then put that injunction on hold a few months later, making the provision enforceable while the issue works its way through the courts.
Within days of taking office in January, Trump signed an executive order enforcing the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funding for most abortions and rescinded two Biden-era executive orders designed to bolster federal support for abortion access.
But defunding abortion providers could endanger health care as a whole by pulling money from medical practices other than those that provide abortion, including those that provide access to birth control, cancer screenings and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, especially for vulnerable populations, health care advocates say.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and 22 other attorneys general took to the courts Thursday seeking to halt the administration from pulling the funding.
“Without access to the medical care they receive at Planned Parenthood health centers, thousands of Americans will simply opt to defer or even forgo critical preventive care like screenings for cancer,” Raoul said in a news release.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the federal right to abortion in 2022, Illinois has protected the right statewide, bringing a rush of out-of-state patients across state lines to access abortion in Illinois. Nearly a quarter of all people crossing state lines to get an abortion come to Illinois, according to a report by the Guttmacher Institute.
But in Wisconsin, abortion rights have been in a state of limbo. The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision triggered a 176-year-old Wisconsin abortion ban back into effect, but that was struck down by the state supreme court in July.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. A statement on its Facebook page said it will pursue action to resume abortion procedures as soon as possible.
“Our commitment is unwavering: Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin will continue to provide the full spectrum of reproductive health care — including abortion — as soon as we are able to,” the Facebook post reads. “In the meantime, we are pursuing every available option — through the courts, through operations, and civic engagement.”
Anti-abortion groups have welcomed the decision to defund abortion providers like Planned Parenthood. Illinois Right to Life President Mary Kate Zander said she hopes the restrictions on abortion in Wisconsin will cause people to think twice about ending a pregnancy.
“Traveling to Illinois for an abortion is far riskier than [Planned Parenthood] and other abortion clinics would have women believe,” Zander said in a statement. “We hope that instead of coming to Illinois, women will seek pregnancy support in Wisconsin and choose to carry their pregnancies to term.”
Planned Parenthood of Illinois is now prepping for a a similar rush of patients to what the group saw after the Dobbs decision, according to Planned Parenthood of Illinois President and CEO Adrienne White-Faines.
“We have made it very clear to Wisconsin that Illinois is ready and will be able to accept [patients],” White-Faines said. “The challenge is this is not sustainable, and so we need to design these processes that allow us the resilience and the capacity within the state. … We’re here now, but we don’t keep our eye off the long-term goal.”