Wisconsin will be one of the states immediately hit the hardest by the Supreme Court’s decision expected next month destroying the Constitutional right of women to control their own lives that has existed for a half-century.
The final decision by the radical new Supreme Court majority won’t merely thrust Wisconsin women back 49 years to a time before the court recognized women had a right to participate fully and equally in America’s democracy by making their own family, health care and career decisions.
It will immediately propel them back 173 years to 1849, the year after Wisconsin became a state when lawmakers banned doctors from medically ending pregnancies for any reason other than saving the life of the mother.
That archaic 19th century law has remained on the books ever since even though enforcement was illegal after the conservative 1973 Nixon Supreme Court guaranteed a woman’s right to decide whether to give birth every time she became pregnant in Roe v. Wade. Wisconsin Republicans argue that will be the law again when the court’s final decision abolishes Roe’s protections against federal and state laws forcing women to carry pregnancies for nine months and give birth without any safe, legal alternatives.
What Wisconsin Lawmakers Believed
That’s a dubious claim that should be legally challenged. In 1849, lawmakers never heard of the extreme religious belief that life begins at conception. In the 1800s, the common belief was a pregnancy began with “the quickening” when women felt movement of a child within their bodies. In other words, late in pregnancies when a child is being formed. That’s exactly the standard Roe adopted allowing abortions before a fetus is capable of living outside a woman’s body. Most legal abortions take place in the first three months.
But any legal challenges to Republican interpretations of law are doomed. The nation’s ultimate legal authority are now the same rightwing justices destroying religious freedom in America by allowing Republicans to pass state and federal laws imposing their own religious beliefs upon everyone with different beliefs.
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In Wisconsin, there’s another even greater threat to the lives of women. Turning back the calendar to 1849 isn’t nearly far enough for the most radically extreme Republican opponents of reproductive rights. Pro-Life Wisconsin, a fraudulently named anti-abortion group, wants to destroy the only exception in that archaic law allowing abortion to save the life of the mother.
Legislative director Matt Sande told USA Today the exception was a “massive statutory loophole.” His organization doesn’t believe there are any circumstances where abortions are medically necessary to save a pregnant woman’s life. What? Do they expect applying leeches to do the trick? Sande expressed confidence the state’s corruptly gerrymandered legislature would ban all abortions without any life-saving exceptions if a Republican governor is elected in November.
What Voters Believe Today
Sande’s ignorant position is definitely a minority opinion in Wisconsin. The Marquette Law School poll conducted in October found 61% of state voters believed abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Only 11% wanted it to be illegal in all cases, which the Supreme Court would allow in any state where Republicans have unchecked political power.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Atty. Gen. Josh Kaul are the bulwark against Republican destruction of women’s rights in Wisconsin. “I will fight every day as long as I’m governor . . . to protect access to abortion and reproductive rights,” Evers said. Kaul refuses to divert state justice department resources needed to combat violent crimes and other serious offenses to prosecute violations of an ancient ban against abortion in backwoods Wisconsin from 1849.
Despite nationwide outrage at Justice Samuel Alito’s vicious first draft of the majority Supreme Court decision allowing Republicans to force pregnant women to give birth, Republicans remain confident they can win the midterm elections. But the Supreme Court has never destroyed a Constitutional right protecting the freedom of women before. They’re now the majority of the American people. No one knows how the explosion will end.
It's not just a women’s issue. All the men in their lives who care about them—their fathers, sons, brothers, spouses, lovers and friends—also have to defeat every single elected Republican opposing a woman’s right to control her own life.
That’s especially important in Senate and House elections because Republican leaders promise if they regain control of those bodies, they’ll pass a nationwide ban on abortion. Democrats need to pick up two more Senate seats and hold onto the House to pass federal legislation restoring the Constitutional rights of women the Supreme Court is poised to strike down within weeks.
Every Republican senator and Democrat Joe Manchin voted against the federal legislation. Democrats need two more senators to end Republicans filibusters preventing the Senate from passing legislation by a majority vote. Wisconsin can give them one by defeating Ron Johnson and protect the state by re-electing Evers and Kaul.