Press Room

For Immediate Release

July 7, 2011

Contact: Matt Sande, Legislative Director, (262) 352-0890

Virginia Zignego, Communications Director, (262) 796-1111, cell (262) 370-3993

On behalf of Pro-Life Wisconsin, the Alliance Defense Fund filed a formal request on Tuesday, July 5, with the Wisconsin Attorney General’s office to confirm the illegality of and enforce the law against the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics (UWHC) Authority’s payment of physician-residents for abortion training at Planned Parenthood in Madison. The recently-signed state budget specifically applies current law restrictions on abortion funding to the UWHC Authority. 

“Our University of Wisconsin public entities should not be ground zero for training abortionists,” said Virginia Zignego, communications director of Pro-Life Wisconsin and a UW-Madison graduate. “Residents need to be instructed how to save, preserve and respect life, not how to kill preborn children at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, the state's number-one abortion provider.”

To view the letter to the Attorney General, click here.

As amended by 2011 Wisconsin Act 32 (the biennial budget bill), Wis. Stat. 20.927 unequivocally prohibits the UWHC Authority’s continued payments to physician-residents to perform abortions at Planned Parenthood or any other location. Section 20.927(1m) of Wisconsin law states, “No funds of this state or of any… agency of this state… shall be authorized for or paid to a physician or surgeon or a hospital, clinic or other medical facility for the performance of an abortion.” Act 32 specifies that the UWHC Authority is a state “agency” as defined for this statute.  

Medical residents in the UW School of Medicine Ob/Gyn Department have two four-week rotations at Planned Parenthood, where they view and participate in abortions. To view the rotation schedule, click here. To view the signed contract between UW and Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, click here.

“Wisconsin law is crystal clear: No state agency can fund abortions,” said Matt Sande, legislative director of Pro-Life Wisconsin. “The UWHC Authority is a state agency, and it is not above the law. We look forward to Attorney General Van Hollen’s confirmation and enforcement of this critical law so that the UWHC does not stubbornly persist in their illegal and offensive abortion funding.”