Democratic candidate Jodi Habush Sinykin, running for Wisconsin Senate District 8, says “reproductive rights are human rights and decisions about pregnancy and healthcare should be a decision made by women, not by far-right politicians in Madison.”

“Protecting women’s healthcare access” is listed as one of Habush Sinykin’s top priorities on her campaign website, stating that “with women’s reproductive health and freedoms on the line–as they still are in Wisconsin–we need to make sure we elect a commonsense pro-choice majority to the state senate.”

Habush Sinykin says “we need a senator who understands Wisconsin women are still one state supreme court seat away from losing the right to choose, forcing women to leave the state to receive the care they need.”

Habush Sinykin has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin. According to their website, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin “endorses candidates who support access to family planning services and believe a woman should be able to make her own health care decisions without political interference.”

Republican incumbent Duey Stroebel, who currently represents Senate District 20 but is running in SD 8 following redistricting, voted to reject an amendment that would have repealed Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban, which has no exceptions for rape or incest. According to the Wisconsin Examiner, “during their respective floor sessions, Democrats in the Senate and Assembly introduced amendments that would have added language in the 2023-25 budget bill to repeal the ban, which holds that any person — except the mother — who intentionally destroys the life of an unborn child could be found guilty of a felony. The law’s only exception is when a ‘therapeutic abortion’ is performed by a physician to ‘save the life of the mother.’”

Stroebel authored AB 183, which would have directed the Wisconsin Department of Health Services to exclude clinics that perform abortions from the state’s Medicaid program. 

Sen. Duey Stroebel has also said that supporting “the right to life” is the “correct thing to do.”