MADISON — The UW Hospitals and Clinics (UWHC) Authority Board approved a proposal February 4 to begin performing abortions at the Madison Surgery Center (MSC).
The 11-3 vote came nearly four hours into the board’s public meeting on February 4, which included speakers on both sides of the issue. Msgr. Daniel T. Ganshert, vicar general of the Diocese of Madison, read a statement by Bishop Robert C. Morlino to the UWHC board.
“Obviously, we’re very dissatisfied,” Matt Sande, director of legislation for Pro-Life Wisconsin, said after the vote. “They said they were conflicted . . . but that didn’t show with the vote.
“It’s not over yet,” he said. “We’re just going to have to keep the pressure on.”
The issue will now be taken up by the board of directors of MSC. Representatives of UWHC, Meriter Hospital, and the UW Medical Foundation, which operate the private joint venture located at 1 S. Park St. in Madison, will make a decision in a private meeting based on recommendation by their respective organizations.
If the proposal is approved, doctors at the clinic could expect to perform approximately 120 to 130 procedures a year on women 19 to 22 weeks pregnant, according to Dr. Laurel Rice, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, who presented the proposal at the meeting.
“Without local availability of this service, however, Madison-area women will be forced to obtain this procedure elsewhere and may obtain it under conditions that do not meet current medical standards,” UW Health said in a statement released after the meeting February 4. “The concerned physicians who brought this issue forward and UW Health and Meriter leaders believe there is a public need to provide these procedures.”
If the proposal is rejected by the MSC board, abortions after 19 weeks would not be available in the Madison area, except at hospitals in cases where the life of the mother is threatened.
Dr. Dennis Christensen had performed second-trimester abortions through Planned Parenthood before his retirement in December. Planned Parenthood in Madison would continue to perform abortions to 19 weeks past conception. Clinics in Milwaukee, Chicago, and Minneapolis currently perform abortions past 19 weeks.
“If something is legal, is it right? Or good?” Karla Dickmeyer, an obstetrician/gynecologist at Meriter Hospital, said during testimony at the meeting.
“When a woman has a truly life-threatening issue, she’s usually hospitalized,” Dickmeyer said. “And if a woman’s life were in danger, it would be done in a hospital.”
It would not happen in an outpatient clinic, she said.