MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – Wisconsin Republicans are circulating a bill that would require doctors prescribing at-home abortion pills to also give their patients catch kits, medical waste bags and instructions on how to return the medical waste afterwards.
“Anytime we’re pushing back against the abortion industry, there’s gonna be pushback,” State Rep. Lindee Brill, R-Sheboygan Falls, one of the bill’s sponsors, said.
Brill said she’s worried at-home abortion pills are contaminating Wisconsin’s waterways.
The proposal is part of a nationwide push by Students for Life Action to promote the Clean Water for All Life Act, including in Wisconsin.
“There’s two goals to this legislation. One, as I’ve said, I’m a pro-life legislator,” Brill said. “And then secondly, this is an environmental impact bill as well.”
Earlier this year, the FDA denied Students for Life Action’s petition to require doctors to include a medical waste bag and catch kit with all mifepristone prescriptions. The FDA wrote that “the Petition provides no evidence showing that bodily fluid from patients who have used mifepristone (a one-time, single-dose drug product) is causing harm to the nation’s aquatic environment.”
Democrats have widely condemned the bill. State Sen. LaTonya Johnson, D- Milwaukee, said she “couldn’t believe” someone would introduce such legislation.
“I just felt like this was a mean-spirited way to try and punish those women who are in need of an abortion,” Johnson said. “And since they can’t outlaw it here in Wisconsin, that this was their second best choice.”
Brill explained the bill would not target miscarrying women, only women having abortions, even if they’re both using the drug mifepristone.
“If it were up to me, we would have no abortion pills at all in Wisconsin,” Brill said.
When asked about women who may bleed for days or weeks during an at-home abortion and whether they would be expected to use the catch kit every time, Brill said “that initial loss of life that she has at home should be caught in the catch kit, I believe.”
Brill said the “bigger discussion to be had” is why women are having abortions alone at home.
The bill is still early in the legislative process. It will next need to be assigned to a committee. If it does pass through both chambers of the legislature, it’s highly unlikely Gov. Evers would sign it into law.
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Wisconsin GOP bill would require catch kits for at-home abortions
