After nearly a month of uncertainty and disruption, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has resumed abortion services at its clinics, ending a pause that left many women in the state scrambling for care. The move comes in response to a controversial provision in President Donald Trump’s recent tax and spending bill, which threatened to cut off Medicaid funding to organizations providing abortions. For nearly four weeks, the state’s largest abortion provider was forced to halt these services while it navigated a rapidly shifting legal landscape and searched for a way to continue offering care to its patients.
The pause began on October 1, 2025, as a direct result of the federal megabill signed by President Trump. According to The Daily Cardinal and Wisconsin Watch, the new law bars Medicaid payments for one year to any organization that received more than $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements in fiscal year 2023 and primarily provides family planning and reproductive health services—including abortions. This expanded the long-standing Hyde Amendment, which already prohibited federal funds from being used for most abortion care, to now cover all Medicaid-covered services at clinics that provide abortions, regardless of whether the Medicaid funds were used for abortion procedures themselves.
“Providing compassionate, high-quality care to our patients has always been our mission — and it always will be,” said Tanya Atkinson, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, in a statement quoted by Wisconsin Examiner. “At a time when politicians are working to take away health care from women and families, we are fighting back with everything we have. We’ve been here before. We’ve stood up to relentless attacks on reproductive health for decades — and we are not backing down now. Our patients deserve nothing less.”
To sidestep the new federal restrictions and resume care, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin made the consequential decision to relinquish its status as an Essential Community Provider (ECP) under the Affordable Care Act. ECPs are federally recognized safety-net clinics and hospitals that primarily serve low-income and medically underserved patients. The ACA requires insurance plans offered through federal or state marketplaces to include a sufficient number of ECPs to ensure broad access for low-income individuals. By giving up this designation, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin no longer fits the definition of a “prohibited entity” under the new law and can once again receive Medicaid funds—even while providing abortion services.
“At this point, in all of our research and analysis, we really shouldn’t see much of an impact on patient access,” Atkinson told Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The Associated Press. “If relinquishing this does ultimately impact our bottom line, then we will have to understand what that path forward is.” She acknowledged that the long-term financial implications of giving up ECP status remain unclear, but emphasized that the immediate priority was ensuring continued care for patients, the vast majority of whom rely on Medicaid—known as BadgerCare in Wisconsin—as their form of insurance.
During the 26-day pause, the impact on women seeking abortions in Wisconsin was significant. According to Wisconsin Watch, many were forced to travel out of state, with Chicago—just a three-hour drive from southeastern Wisconsin—becoming the closest option for some. Only two independent clinics in Milwaukee continued providing abortions during this time, and students at the University of Wisconsin lost local access entirely, as Planned Parenthood’s Madison East Health Center was the sole provider in the area. While exact numbers are difficult to pin down, Atkinson confirmed, “It was really, really difficult to say how many women were affected by the pause in services.”
Despite the halt in abortion services, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin continued to offer a range of other essential health services, including contraceptives, cancer screenings, and testing for pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. The organization serves approximately 50,000 people across the state, with about 60% of those patients covered by Medicaid, according to Wisconsin Examiner and The Daily Cardinal.
Planned Parenthood’s decision to drop ECP status aligns with a September 29, 2025, court filing from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which stated that family planning organizations could continue billing Medicaid for services if they either ceased providing abortions, relinquished their tax-exempt status, or gave up their ECP designation. Atkinson was clear that Planned Parenthood would not be giving up its tax-exempt status, and emphasized that the organization’s priority was to maintain access for patients who rely on Medicaid.
“What we do know is that the vast majority of our patients really rely on BadgerCare as their form of insurance, and our focus is on providing as much care as we possibly can to as many people as we can across the entire state,” Atkinson told Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She reiterated that patients should not expect to see changes in costs or access to services, at least for now.
The new federal restrictions are set to expire in July 2026, but their immediate effect has been to force Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country to make difficult choices. In Wisconsin, the organization’s actions were described by Wisconsin Right to Life as “clearly aimed at sidestepping” the federal law. Heather Weininger, executive director of Wisconsin Right to Life, argued, “Planned Parenthood’s abortion-first business model underscores why taxpayer funding should never support organizations that make abortion a priority. Women in difficult circumstances deserve compassionate, life-affirming care—the kind of support the pro-life movement is committed to offering.”
The broader national context is no less complex. Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision allowing states to ban abortion, the legal and political landscape has shifted dramatically. Twelve states now ban abortion at any stage of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, while four more ban it after about six weeks’ gestation. Planned Parenthood has warned that about half of its clinics providing abortion could be forced to close nationwide due to similar bans on Medicaid funding for services other than abortion. In Wisconsin, however, Planned Parenthood was the only state affiliate to pause all abortions in response to the new federal law, highlighting the patchwork nature of abortion access in the U.S.
Legal battles over the provision are ongoing. In July 2025, Planned Parenthood sued the Trump Administration, resulting in a temporary injunction that allowed abortion services to continue through the summer and early fall. That injunction was lifted in September, reinstating the Medicaid funding ban. Meanwhile, Wisconsin is part of a multi-state federal lawsuit challenging the provision, and a federal appeals court has allowed the government to halt payments while the challenge moves forward.
For now, abortions have resumed at Planned Parenthood’s clinics in Madison, Milwaukee, and Sheboygan—the last of which provides only medication abortions, while the other two offer both medication and surgical abortions. Between October 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024, Planned Parenthood performed 3,727 abortions in Wisconsin, according to organization data reported by Wisconsin Watch.
As the debate continues and legal challenges unfold, Tanya Atkinson summed up the organization’s stance: “The bottom line in all of this is that we need to get the politics out of sexual and reproductive health care. It’s such a confusing environment. It gets more confusing by the day, and it should not be up to Washington to decide if a woman in Wisconsin needs health care.”
For the thousands of Wisconsin residents who depend on Planned Parenthood for essential health services, the resumption of abortion care marks a return to a semblance of normalcy—at least for now.
