Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging two state abortion restrictions, arguing that requiring abortions to be performed only by licensed physicians and imposing a 24-hour waiting period violate Wisconsin’s constitutional guarantee of personal liberty. The case was filed in Dane County Circuit Court. It names Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne as a class representative for all 71 district attorneys in Wisconsin because the statutes carry criminal penalties. One challenged statute limits abortion procedures to licensed physicians. The other requires patients to wait at least 24 hours after a pre-abortion consultation before a physician may perform an abortion or provide abortion medication. Tanya Atkinson, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin’s president and CEO, said the restrictions create added travel, missed work, child-care and lodging costs while delaying care. “There’s no medical reason for either of these restrictions, and they have real consequences,” Atkinson said during a briefing. The organization’s chief medical officer, Dr. Allison Linton, said patients routinely report being unable to take additional time off work or arrange a second round of child care. Those burdens, she said, fall particularly heavily on hourly workers, parents, people with limited financial resources and patients who must travel long distances for care. Planned Parenthood is also arguing that other qualified clinicians, including nurse practitioners and midwives, should be permitted to provide abortions in Wisconsin rather than reserving the service exclusively for physicians. Diane Welsh, an attorney with Pines Bach representing the plaintiffs, said the restrictions create access barriers that conflict with the state Constitution. The lawsuit comes after several years of upheaval in Wisconsin abortion policy. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion law was interpreted as banning most abortions. The Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected that interpretation in summer 2025, changing the legal landscape for abortion providers and patients. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin also temporarily halted abortion care later in 2025 amid a dispute over federal funding. Atkinson said the organization filed the case to make abortion access less vulnerable to shifts in litigation and politics. She rejected the idea that the timing, less than two months before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, was primarily political. “Whether you can receive healthcare shouldn’t depend on what happened in court that morning,” Atkinson said. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin praised the lawsuit. Party Chair Devin Remiker said Democrats would continue fighting over abortion access in court, in the Legislature and during the November elections. The lawsuit’s claims will now be addressed through the court process.