A Wisconsin circuit court judge has ruled that an 1849 law that classifies the destruction of a fetus by someone other than the mother as a felony does not outlaw abortions, returning the state’s abortion access to its pre-Dobbs status.
Dane County Circuit Court Judge Diane Schlipper on Tuesday reaffirmed a ruling she issued earlier this year, finding that an 1800s-era law “does not apply to consensual abortions, but to feticide.”
After the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling in 2022, the question was raised over whether a Wisconsin state law passed in 1849 could go into effect. Roe had effectively invalidated the law when it was in effect.
Seems simpler for the good people of Wisconsin to just vote on a new law that says whatever they think is proper. Obstetric science has advanced somewhat since the time when Ignaz Semmelweis first proposed doctors washing their hands before delivering babies (especially if they’d just come form the cadaver lab), so some of the reasoning behind the 1849 law might be out of date.
Unfortunately, that would require certain politicians to go on record about something that might be used against them if they later ran a national campaign, so better to let the court take the matter out of their hands and (mis-?)interpret an old law in a politically advantageous way.
Sadly as a past resident of Wisconsin referendum votes are nonbinding and the Republican held house and Senate ignore them and the people of Wisconsin.
If it wasn’t the case they would have had legal cannabis long ago.
The gerrymandered state is so frustrating and is barely resisting a further descent into regressive policy by a decent governor.