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Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce Fact Briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Yes.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican candidate for Wisconsin governor, supported highly restrictive federal abortion legislation after voting for a Wisconsin law that generally allows abortion through 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The 2015 law that Tiffany voted for as a member of the Legislature prohibits abortion at 20 weeks postfertilization and after, except to protect the life or health of the mother.

But in 2023, as a member of Congress, Tiffany co-sponsored a bill to prohibit abortion in cases where a fetal heartbeat is detectable, generally six weeks. That legislation didn’t become law.

Campaigning for governor, Tiffany has said he would uphold the 2015 law.

The Democratic nominee in the Nov. 3 election, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, questioned Tiffany about his two positions in their only debate.

Tiffany replied: “My position’s been consistent ever since I announced for governor,” adding he would not sign fetal heartbeat legislation.

This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

We’ve written more extensively about this topic in a different article. You can read more about it here.

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Tom Kertscher joined Wisconsin Watch as a full-time Milwaukee-based reporter in October 2024 after starting as a freelance Fact Briefs reporter in January 2023. In addition to contributing to Wisconsin Watch’s collaboration with The Gigafact Project to combat online misinformation, he reports on the rapid expansion of data centers and other statewide issues. Kertscher is a former longtime reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a contributing writer for Milwaukee Magazine and the author of two sports books, on Al McGuire and Brett Favre.