Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority strikes down 176-year-old abortion ban

AP News ^ | Updated 9:45 AM CDT, July 2, 2025 | TODD RICHMOND

[E. Pluribus Unum]

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority struck down the state’s 176-year-old abortion ban on Wednesday, ruling 4-3 that it was superseded by newer state laws regulating the procedure, including statutes that criminalize abortions only after a fetus can survive outside the womb.

The ruling came as no surprise given that liberal justices control the high court. One of them went so far as promising to uphold abortion rights during her campaign two years ago, and they blasted the ban during oral arguments in November.

The statute Wisconsin legislators adopted in 1849, widely interpreted as a near-total ban on abortions, made it a felony for anyone other than the mother or a doctor in a medical emergency to destroy “an unborn child.”

The ban was in effect until 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide nullified it. Legislators never officially repealed it, however, and conservatives argued that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe reactivated it.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, filed a lawsuit that year arguing that abortion restrictions legislators enacted during the nearly half-century that Roe was in effect trumped the ban. Kaul specifically cited a 1985 law that essentially permits abortions until viability. Some babies can survive with medical help after 21 weeks of gestation.

Republican legislators also enacted laws under Roe requiring a woman to undergo an ultrasound, wait 24 hours before having the procedure and provide written consent, and mandating that doctors physically provide abortion-inducing drugs to women in their presence.

The majority ruling concluded that “the legislature impliedly repealed” the ban “by enacting comprehensive legislation about virtually every aspect of abortion including where, when, and how healthcare providers may lawfully perform abortions.”

“That comprehensive legislation so thoroughly covers the entire subject of abortion...

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TOPICS: Government
KEYWORDS: abortion; arrestjoshkaul; babykillers; criminalag; joshkaul; massmurderers; murderer; prolife; wisconsin

[chopperk]

A new round of baby killers from Wisconsin.

[budj]

"...statutes that criminalize abortions only after a fetus can survive outside the womb...

So, according to blackrobed buttheads, the quality of being a human being is dependent on technology.

Apologies to G_d Almighty.

[budj]

Opening a new branch office in Madison, WI.

[caddie]

Wisconsin people are so gross that even 170 years ago the abomination of abortion had to be outlawed. That’s pretty gross.

[Regulator]

So laws that are old are irrelevant?

Guess those ancient murder statutes are outta date too...

[Texas Eagle]

Woo hoo! Fewer Wisconsins!

[7thOF7th]

It would seam that the older law must be repealed prior to any other law taking its’ place. I am unsure of the supersedes process and how it applies to law. Can a more knowledgeable person please explain.

[Carl Vehse]

Four Wisconsin Supreme Court justices have identified themselves as needing to be charges, tried, convicted, and sentenced as accessories to murder, crimes against humanity, and giving aid and comfort to the domestic and foreign enemies of the United States.