Wisconsin’s Abortion Ban That Pre-Dated the Civil War Was Just Struck Down by Its Leftist Supreme Court – RedState
We tried to warn you, Wisconsin, but you just couldn’t help yourselves from electing a “progressive” judge with a radical agenda to sit on your state’s Supreme Court. That judge, Susan Crawford, joined with her fellow leftists Wednesday to strike down an abortion ban that had been on the state’s books since 1849, well before the Civil War.
In a 4-3 decision, the leftist majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the 19th-century state law was superseded by a 2023 lower court ruling that the old law doesn’t ban “consensual medical abortions.” The original law, which was in effect until Roe v. Wade came along in 1973, made it a felony for anyone except for the mother or her doctor to destroy “an unborn child,” and even then, it was only allowed in the case of a medical emergency.
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After Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, the 1849 law was once again in the spotlight, with conservatives arguing it came back into effect, while leftists lobbied for any and all state restrictions on abortion to be made null and void. This led Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, Democrat, to file a lawsuit seeking to strike from the books any law limiting abortion access, including previous actions taken by Republicans to ban abortions after the point of viability, require women seeking abortions to first have an ultrasound, and—horrors of horrors to the pro-abort crowd—mandate that women could only acquire abortion pills from an in-person visit to a medical facility.
Writing for the majority, Justice Rebeca Dallet opined:
“That comprehensive legislation so thoroughly covers the entire subject of abortion that it was clearly meant as a substitute for the 19th century near-total ban on abortion.”
In her dissent, Justice Annette Ziegler said the ruling was “a jaw-dropping exercise of judicial will,” and accused her left-leaning colleagues on the bench of caving in to public pressure from their base. “Put bluntly,” Ziegler wrote, “our court has no business usurping the role of the legislature, inventing legal theories on the fly in order to make four justices’ personal preference the law.”
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Justice Ziegler was joined in her dissent by Justice Rebecca Bradley, who clearly channeled her inner Amy Coney Barrett when she wrote that the majority opinion was “a parody of progressive politics.”
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley may just have written an even better dissent than Amy Coney Barrett. pic.twitter.com/33B1sX2yJO
— Dan O’Donnell (@DanODonnellShow) July 2, 2025
Here’s more from Justice Bradley:
“Not content with effacing the law, Chief Justice Jill Karofsky rewrites history, erases and insults women by referring to mothers as ‘pregnant people,’ slanders proponents of the pro-life perspective, and broadcasts dangerously false narratives about laws restricting abortion,” Bradley wrote. “Laden with emotion, steeped in myth, and light on the law, the concurrence reads as a parody of progressive politics rather than the opinion of a jurist.”
RedState wrote earlier this year about the importance of the April 1st election that determined the ideological balance of power on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Significant resources poured into the race that pitted Waukesha County Circuit Judge Brad Schimel against the ultimate winner, Dane County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford, with Elon Musk even holding a rally on the ground. The court now tilts in favor of the left, but another round of elections in 2026 could swing it back in favor of conservatives.
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