Despite federal and state restrictions, University of Wisconsin-Madison students can still access multiple forms of abortion care, the Bissell Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UW-Madison, Jenny Higgins, told The Daily Cardinal in an interview about Wisconsin’s changing reproductive health landscape.
Recent legal battles have left many unsure of where the law stands on abortion, but both medication abortion and the procedure are currently available for UW-Madison students, according to Planned Parenthood. However, the future of abortion care in the state remains uncertain, Higgins said.
Currently, for an in-state medical provider to legally provide an abortion, Wisconsin law requires an in-person, two-visit requirement with a physician, mandatory counseling and an ultrasound.
Though Wisconsin law prohibits telehealth abortion care from in-state providers, it is still available to Wisconsinites through shield laws. Shield laws legally protect providers from other states if they prescribe abortion medication to Wisconsinites via telehealth.
On May 1, a federal appeals court ruled to ban telehealth from prescribing and mail dispensing of mifepristone, the most commonly used abortion medication when prescribed along with another medication, misoprostol. If enacted, the ban would require anyone in Wisconsin seeking mifepristone to consult with a physician and obtain it in person at a clinic or medical office.
The Supreme Court preserved access to mifepristone via telehealth by rejecting the appeals court’s decision on May 14, allowing Wisconsinites to access abortion medication via telehealth from out-of-state providers despite the state’s restrictive abortion laws.
“It's confusing to patients, it's confusing to providers, it's confusing to advocates. And that's part of the point of these various lawsuits and mechanisms of action, and ways that people are restricting abortion access,” Higgins told The Cardinal.
How can Wisconsinites legally access abortion care?
Shield laws have allowed Wisconsinites to access abortion medication through the mail since the overturn of Roe vs. Wade in 2022. In 2025, Wisconsinites ordered a monthly average of 240 sets of medication abortion pills through shield-law telehealth providers, according to Higgins and data from #WeCount.
Following the Supreme Court’s May 14 decision, access to abortion medication through shield laws remains available to all people in Wisconsin, including UW-Madison students.
Because UW-Madison is a public university, students on the Student Health Insurance Plan are subject to Wisconsin’s prohibition on using state funds to pay for abortion care.
Wisconsin law also restricts private insurers from covering abortion care, meaning even students with private insurance could face high out-of-pocket costs. The cost of an abortion procedure averages $600 in the first trimester at Planned Parenthood, according to national Planned Parenthood statistics, increasing to $1,500-2,000 later in the second trimester. The cost of abortion by pill averages around $580 at Planned Parenthood.
UW-Madison students cannot receive abortion care on-campus through University Health Services due to a Wisconsin law prohibiting the use of state funding to provide or promote abortion services. To receive in-person abortion care, students must travel off campus.
According to Abortion Finder, a website for locating abortion providers, the Planned Parenthood Madison East, about six miles east of campus, is the closest abortion provider to UW-Madison.
Amy Williamson, Associate Director of the Collaborative for Reproductive Equity, told the Cardinal there are two reasons for the lack of on-campus care. One is the Wisconsin law prohibiting using state funding for abortion care blocks public universities from directly providing abortion care.
Additionally, Williamson and Higgins said there is a broader cultural expectation that abortion care be provided in standalone clinics. Private universities in Wisconsin could theoretically provide abortion health services, but many do not due to the “cultural siloing” of abortion care.
The UHS website refers patients to abortionfinder for abortion care, and it does offer follow-up care for patients after an abortion.
Although the Supreme Court intervened against the ban on mailing mifepristone, Higgins said the future of abortion care remains uncertain as new lawsuits emerge.
“No matter what happens with this mifepristone and telehealth decision, medication abortion is harder to access in our state than it needs to be, including for UW students,” Higgins said.
