Wisconsin Assembly passes bipartisan bill to allow pharmacists to distribute over-the-counter contraception

On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Assembly passed a bipartisan bill to allow pharmacists to prescribe certain forms of contraception and birth control without needing a doctor’s prescription.  

Under Assembly Bill 176, pharmacists would be allowed to provide prescriptions for hormonal contraception in pill and patch form to patients over the age of 18. They will also be required to send a report to the recipient’s primary care physician. The bill surprisingly passed with bipartisan support, making it through the Assembly after an 82-11 vote.  

With many Wisconsin Republicans vehemently opposed to any abortion, this vote came as a surprise to some. Even Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), who last week blamed a workforce shortage on easy abortion access, co-authored the bill and said contraception “should be super easy to have access to.”  

“This is one of the few times that this body has even seen before us a bill that can get debated that supports increasing access to contraception,” said state Rep. Lisa Subeck (D-Madison), another co-author of the bill.  

After federal abortion rights were stripped away by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision last year, many states began attempts to limit contraception. In his concurring opinion in the Dobbs decision, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said that access to contraception and gay marriage should be “looked at,” leading many reproductive rights advocates to believe contraception would be targeted next. Democrats in Wisconsin also introduced a bill this week, the Right to Contraception Act, that would make it impossible to ban birth control in the state.  

“It’s hard to believe 58 years after Griswold [v. Connecticut] that something as basic as the right to contraception is something we have to worry about,” state Sen. Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) said at a press conference about the bill Wednesday.