In Wisconsin, women’s health care is constricted by an 1849 law. These doctors are aghast.

Sitting around a table at a busy lunch spot, the three women share a tight friendship. It’s been over a year since Wisconsin’s 1849 law criminalized abortion. Now, her two gynecologists and her one certified midwife find their medical training, skills and insight constrained by state politics.

“At the time, we didn’t even know that bacteria could cause disease,” says Christine Riary, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Green Bay.

Like morticians and garbage collectors, obstetricians look at the horrifyingly grotesque core of human existence. A fetus whose organs grow outside the body. A woman who was forced to give birth to a skullless baby in order to push open her cervix.

Obstetrician-gynecologist Anna Igler regularly performed abortions for medically indicated reasons until the Supreme Court overturned abortion rights last year. she’s tired of it

“I’m on a different level now,” she said. “A part of my heart is so angry with people who stick their heads in the sand.” she says she can’t. “A lot of people I talk to have no idea what laws are in place in our state.”

A year later, Igler said, expectant parents are still trying to end their pregnancies safely, even if their fetuses have life-threatening genetic conditions like anencephaly or trisomy 13 and trisomy 18. It is said that he visits her examination room with the belief that he can do it.

“They’re shocked when I say ‘I can’t,’ and they’re shocked when I say we’re following a law from 1849,” Igler said.

She was referring to the original abortion laws the state enacted before the Civil War, when women could not vote or own property. The law makes abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony unless it prevents the pregnant person from dying.

These women hadn’t met in a long time, so they were keen to compare notes. She spoke on condition of anonymity because the licensed midwife is not authorized to speak to the media and is concerned about losing her job in the local health care system. “My biggest problem right now is getting medication to end a pregnancy that has already passed,” she said. “I noticed that local pharmacists wouldn’t dispense medicine.”

She gave an overview. A pharmacist told a patient that her misoprostol, a drug that causes convulsions to expel pregnancy tissue, had expired. Another Walgreens canceled the order. A third person said they needed preapproval, pointing out, “It’s a $3 pill and you can’t get preapproval on the weekends.”

The midwife said she and her fellow doctors, jokingly, planned to send a gift basket to a pharmacist they could find in town who would write prescriptions for abortion pills.

Now, when a patient has a miscarriage, the midwife says, “We warn our patients that this might happen, but they say, ‘But the baby is dead. , I said to them, ‘Sorry, I don’t know why. “

It’s been a year since this new era of compulsory childbirth for most pregnant women began, and although there was some confusion and disorientation in the first few months, it’s kind of, if not acceptance or resignation. subdued by a chronic fear of Obstetricians are afraid to practice medicine exactly as they were trained.

A recent survey of obstetricians and gynecologists in states with bans on abortion by the KFF pollster found that 40% of patients had miscarriages or other pregnancy-related medical emergencies since the Supreme Court ruling. It turned out that they feel restricted in the treatment of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Medical Institute decision last summer. Nearly half of them said they were incapable of practicing standard medical care.

Fear of felonies and revocation of medical licenses lead to futile training.

Under Wisconsin’s abortion ban (and bans in at least 13 other states), in theory, physicians who cannot detect fetal heart activity cannot prescribe medication pills or perform abortions. should not be criminally prosecuted. But doctors here in Green Bay, and others interviewed in Madison, say they, and the lawsuit-defying hospitals they work for, don’t want patients who can’t conceive anymore, or who have embryos. He said he was requesting patients with gestational sacs to return home. She undergoes multiple ultrasounds and is forced into a non-viable pregnancy for several weeks.

Before abortion was banned in Wisconsin, Igler typically used an ultrasound machine in her office to detect when a patient’s pregnancy had stopped. She intended to break the news to her parents of her pregnancy there. In some cases, patients requested further ultrasounds and were referred to fetal imaging. It may help ease their grief and “I was happy to do it for them,” Igler said.

But her bedside ultrasound was unable to record and save the images Mr. Igler would need to prove his medical judgment was reasonable in criminal prosecution. She was forced to send all patients for additional imaging.

“It seems cruel to show a woman a dead, non-viable baby and say, ‘Okay, I’m going to take you for a fetal imaging scan and record the pictures so you can look at it again,'” she said. says.

In March, Republican Rep. Ron Tassler, who represents the Wisconsin countryside south of Green Bay, posted on Facebook, “Thank God for Dobbs’ decision!” In response, a local resident asked, “If a 14-year-old girl who cannot speak or walk is assaulted, should she be forcibly carried?”

The exchange escalated into a confrontation. “Is her health in danger?” asked Tassler. “Can’t she leave the state? Will she agree?”

Amidst the torrent of acerbic words, one moment stands out. Mr. Igler was furious at the ruthless response and jumped in, saying, ‘Ron Tassler, are you a monster? Do you know what compassion is? You will feel the backlash, please let go of it,” he wrote. “I’m an obstetrician. I’m an expert, not you.”

Mr Tasler retorted that Mr Igler “is angry that I can’t kill the baby until and after it’s born”, and asked, “I’m a monster to stop her”. “Honestly, how many babies have you aborted? How much money did you get for that? Did your hospital collect bodies for stem cells?”

As lunchtime crowds eased at Green Bay restaurants, women stared at Facebook posts on Igler’s phone.

She shook her head in confusion. “This makes no sense,” she said. “It’s a conspiracy theory. If people actually did that, I would make more money.” offal their babies.And if I please do not You can make more money by providing birth control pills. “

Those sitting at the table laughed at the absurdity.

The salad bowl was empty. Everyone was talking about their own abortions. Igler was forced to travel to Colorado after her 25-week-old baby contracted a viral infection. Ms. Lyary had lost her pregnancy at 17 weeks and did not want to endure the trauma of her vaginal delivery.

About 22 million women are currently undergoing abortions. It doesn’t take much effort to find some of them.

Igler found a community of grieving women on a Facebook group called Ending a Wanted Pregnancy. There are countless other online groups as well.

“Politicians want to believe that we live in a perfect world where none of this happens,” she says.

According to Princeton University’s gerrymandering project, the Wisconsin legislature is one of the most gerrymandered legislatures in the nation. Republicans have a majority in the state Senate and Congress, and last month Senate Republicans voted unanimously to retain the 1849 Abortion Law.

But judicial alternatives to restore abortion rights are beginning to unfold. In April, Democratic-backed abortion-rights advocate Janet Protashewitz won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, giving a narrow majority to a liberal justice and leading to a ruling on the legitimacy of the 1849 law. opened the way On July 7, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Diane Schripper questioned the validity of the pre-Civil War-era ban and allowed Democratic Attorney General Josh Cowl to proceed with the case.

For now, Riley drives across the border to work in rural Minnesota. “I want to practice medicine here, but first we have to get rid of this law,” she said.