MADISON, Wisconsin (LifeSiteNews) — Wisconsin Democrat Gov. Tony Evers pledged to veto legislation currently working its way through the state legislature that would submit a 14-week abortion ban to the voters of the Dairy State.
AB 975 would place on Wisconsin’s April 2024 ballot a referendum asking whether to “prohibi[t] under Wisconsin Statutes an abortion if the probable postfertilization age of the unborn child is 14 or more weeks, except in the case of a medical emergency.” Wisconsin Public Radio reported that it passed the Wisconsin Assembly 53-46, though several of the 11 Republicans who joined Democrats in voting against it because they considered it far too weak.
“I support this bill because I believe that the people should decide without having to be put in one bucket or the other,” moderate Republican state Rep. Angie Sapik said. “Put the referendum directly to the people without allegiance to their political party, and let’s see how many people are actually standing in the mud with me.”
The bill now moves to the Wisconsin Senate for consideration, but Evers has already declared it will not survive his desk, and Republicans are not expected to amass the votes needed to override his veto.
The people of Wisconsin have already made themselves clear on this issue, and so have I.
I promised to veto any bill that takes away Wisconsinites’ reproductive freedom or makes reproductive healthcare any less accessible than it is today. I’ll keep that promise. https://t.co/RZBhv4IUUy
— Governor Tony Evers (@GovEvers) January 25, 2024
In reality, abortion is technically already illegal from conception onward in Wisconsin, thanks to an 1849 law that makes it a felony for an abortionist (but not a pregnant mother) to commit an abortion for any reason other than to save the mother’s life. That law was among scores of old laws that the U.S. Supreme Court allowed to be reactivated when it overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 but was soon met with a fresh round of left-wing judicial activism and Democrat refusal to enforce.
Shortly after Roe’s fall, Evers threatened to give clemency to any abortionist prosecuted under the law, and Democrat Attorney General Josh Kaul said he would not prosecute anyone who violates it. But the threat of the law being enforced by lower levels of government has still gotten Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin to suspend abortions until the legal landscape changed. It also filed a legal challenge to the law, claiming that modern state laws effectively canceled it out and that it was too old to have the consent of current Wisconsinites (a premise that, if adopted, would have drastic ramifications for all corners of U.S. law).
Last July, Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper ruled that the 1849 law, which explicitly prohibits “intentionally destroy[ing] the life of an unborn child,” was not actually an abortion ban because its language supposedly did not specifically use the word “abortion” (despite the word appearing elsewhere in the law), and only applies to violence against pregnant women that happens to harm their babies. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin resumed committing abortions last September. Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski filed an appeal of Schlipper’s ruling to the more conservative Second District Court of Appeals in December.
Fourteen states currently ban all or most abortions, with available data so far indicating that now-enforceable pro-life laws could effectively wipe out an estimated 200,000 abortions a year.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe, abortion allies have pursued a variety of tactics to keep the abortion industry going, including easy access to abortion pills, enshrining “rights” to abortion in state constitutions, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, and making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors.
President Joe Biden has called on Congress to codify a “right” to abortion in federal law, which would not only restore but expand the Roe status quo by making it illegal for states to pass virtually any pro-life laws. The 2024 elections will determine whether Democrats retain the White House and keep or gain enough seats in Congress to make that happen.