Oral arguments in the state lawsuit seeking to overturn Wisconsin's 1849 law banning almost all abortions in the state are scheduled before a Dane County circuit judge on Thursday. Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) filed the case last June, a few days after the U.S. Supreme Court ended Roe vs. Wade protections for abortion rights in the court's Dobbs decision.
Lauren Forbush chairs Reproductive Justice Action of Milwaukee. She says it's been a very long 11 months for women who want a full range of health care options, including some women who didn't have access to a close-by abortion provider.
"And people couldn't afford it. People didn't have the choice to have a kid or not because they didn't have the resources to and this is just taking away a right to our bodily autonomy," Forbush tells WUWM.
Another member of Reproductive Justice Action, Hayley McNeill, says after various preliminary legal battles in the Dane County case, it's important that the lawsuit appears to be moving ahead.
"Obviously, things take a long time. But to get the arguments actually starting to be heard, means we're one step closer to things actually changing, and something actually happening," McNeill says.
After an eventual ruling in Dane County, it's expected the losing side will appeal. The case may eventually wind up before the State Supreme Court, which will have a liberal majority when newly-elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz is sworn in later this summer.
McNeill says she's patient.
"We understand it takes time and we do have a lot of patience. But that doesn't mean we're going to stop fighting," McNeill says.
For one thing, McNeill says her group still hopes to get Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm to sign a pledge not to prosecute abortion cases. Chisholm is one of three Wisconsin District Attorneys who are current defendants in the state lawsuit after Kaul removed top Republican lawmakers from the case. Chisholm last summer said he wasn't interested in using resources to prosecute abortion cases. But the Democrat hasn't said much lately due to the lawsuit.
A Republican District Attorney who is also a defendant, Joel Urmanski of Sheboygan County, has attacked Kaul's arguments that the 1849 abortion ban is unenforceable because of its age — that Republican-backed state abortion restrictions passed over the last 30 years supersede the 174-year-old ban.
Reproductive Justice Action also announced Sunday night a national day of action against abortion bans, slated for June 24, the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs ruling.
Anti-abortion groups are already promising what they call a "March for Life" on June 24 or what they call Dobbs Day.
