This post originally appeared at https://wisconsindailystar.com/news/wisconsin-supreme-court-to-hear-challenges-to-wisconsin-abortion-law/tcsquare/2024/07/06/

by Benjamin Yount

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is going to decide on abortion.

The court said it will hear two challenges to Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion law, without waiting for lower courts in the state to rule on them first.

“In granting this case, this court is doing what many other state courts have done, both before and after Dobbs v. Jackson – considering a state constitutional challenge to an abortion-related statute. Deciding important state constitutional questions is not unusual – it’s this court’s job,” Justice Jill Karofsky (pictured above) wrote in the order to accept the case.

The Wisconsin court will hear a challenge to the ruling from a Dane County judge that says Wisconsin’s law, which all but bans abortions in the state, deals with mothers who want to kill their unborn babies, and has nothing to do with doctors who perform abortions.

The court will also hear the request from Planned Parenthood to declare that there is a right to abortion in Wisconsin.

Michelle Velasquez, chief strategy officer with Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, said she is grateful the court is taking up their case.

“Wisconsinites need and deserve resolution to the questions before the court. With continued attacks on abortion, as well as other sexual and reproductive health care like contraception, gender affirming care, and IVF, protecting access to abortion and establishing protections for bodily autonomy is essential to ensuring everyone can make decisions about their reproductive health and lives,” Velasquez said in a statement.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty is one of many groups who say the liberal majority court should let lawmakers settle the state’s abortion questions.

“Wisconsin’s duly elected legislature and governor should go through the normal legislative process and create policy to govern abortion. No judge, justice, or lawyer should be creating policy for Wisconsinites out of thin air,” WILL lawyer Luke Berg said. “Yet that’s what is happening now. Wisconsin’s Supreme Court is making a historic mistake by even considering an original action in this case.”

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Benjamin Yount is a contributor for The Center Square.
Photo “Jill Karofsky” by Justice Jill Karofsky. Background Photo “Wisconsin Supreme Court” by Daderot.

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