(OSV News) ─ Wisconsin's Catholic bishops said that state's top court issued a "tragic ruling" by striking down a ban on abortion Wisconsin had in place since 1849.
The 4-3 ruling, issued July 2, held that the past 50 years of "comprehensive legislation" on abortion regulation had implicitly repealed the law.
Plaintiffs, including Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, had brought the case in the wake of the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which repealed Roe v. Wade and returned the issue of abortion to the states.
The Wisconsin Catholic Conference, which represents the state's bishops, immediately decried the high court's decision.
"It is nonsensical for the Court majority to pretend that Wisconsin's longstanding abortion ban was impliedly repealed by previous legislatures," WCC Executive Director Barbara Sella responded, noting that "supporters and opponents alike" over 176 years understood the Legislature's intent that abortion should be illegal.
"A civilized society," Sella said, "does not sanction taking the lives of its own children. In 1849, Wisconsin banned abortion and in 1853 it abolished the death penalty. There is no other way to read this decision than that the Court's majority has abandoned Wisconsin's proud legacy of protecting all human life."
The 1849 ban, which had been initiated as part of a bill on homicide, stated that "the willful killing of an unborn quick child" -- a child in the womb whose movements could be sensed by the mother -- constituted first-degree manslaughter.
The ban also listed efforts to use "any medicine, drug or substance" or "any instrument or other means" with the intent to "destroy such child" as second-degree manslaughter.
The bill made an exception in cases where "the same shall have been necessary to preserve the life of such mother, or shall have been advised by two physicians to be necessary for such purpose."
An 1858 revision prohibited abortions regardless of "quickening."
The WCC said in its statement that "the Court's reasoning flies in the face of clear legislative intent not to repeal" the ban.
"The very laws the Court's 4-3 majority claims impliedly repeal 940.04 (the Wisconsin legislative code number for the ban) were only enacted in response to Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey," said the WCC. "Those U.S. Supreme Court decisions superseded 940.04 and rendered it unenforceable, until Dobbs returned the issue of abortion to the states in 2022."
The conference added, "In the last 50 years since Roe and Casey, the legislature made clear on multiple occasions that it was not explicitly or impliedly repealing 940.04 through subsequent legislation. In fact, the legislature amended 940.04 in 2011, and it has been a key issue in every recent statewide election."
The Catholic Church teaches that human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the first moment of conception, and since the first century has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion.
However, Catholics polled by Pew Research Center have shown an increased acceptance of abortion since 2007. Among Catholic survey respondents, 59% said abortion should be legal in most or all cases, compared to 48% in both Pew's 2007 and 2014 surveys.
Abortion rates in the U.S. have continued to increase following the Dobbs decision, up to about 1.14 million in 2024 from 1.06 million in 2023, according to data from #WeCount, a research project by the Society of Family Planning, a group that supports legal abortion. Of the 2024 total, 25% were abortions facilitated by telehealth.
Abortion in the U.S. is heavily correlated with poverty and low incomes. Guttmacher Institute, which supports legal abortion, reported 75% of women seeking abortion were low-income, with 50% below the federal poverty line. About six out of 10 women seeking abortion were already mothers. The top concerns reported included not being able to afford another child, losing the ability to work or continue education, or having to care for dependents or other family responsibilities.
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Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X @GinaJesseReina.
