We've Got Some Good News And Some Bad News About Abortion Rights

Also some medium news.

Here’s some good news — the good people of Wisconsin will never again have to worry about being forced to party like it’s 1849, vis-à-vis abortion. The state Supreme Court’s ruling in Kaul v. Urmanski on Wednesday officially invalidated a 176-year-old law that criminalized abortion, ensuring the right to abortion throughout the land. Well, as long as they don’t pass another ban, anyway.

The draconian law sentenced anyone other than the person having the abortion “who intentionally destroys the life of an unborn child” to six years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

“Today is a win for women and families, a win for health care professionals who want to provide medically accurate care to their patients, and a win for basic freedoms in Wisconsin, but our work is not over,” said Gov. Tony Evers, adding, “I will continue to fight any effort that takes away Wisconsinites’ reproductive freedom or makes reproductive health care, whether birth control, abortion, I.V.F., or fertility treatments, any less accessible in Wisconsin than it is today. That is a promise.”

Ironically, they wouldn’t have been able to do it if it weren’t for Republicans in the state, who passed approximately 87,000 anti-abortion statutes and regulations back in Roe times when most of them could not even be enacted. The sheer number of laws allowed the court — newly tipped liberal by the recently elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz, the judge Elon Musk failed to defeat — to determine that those statutes constituted a repeal of the 1849 law.

“Comprehensive legislation enacted over the last 50 years regulating in detail the ‘who, what, where, when, and how’ of abortion so thoroughly covers the entire subject of abortion that it was meant as a substitute for the 19th century near-total ban on abortion,” Justice Rebecca Dallet wrote.

“Indeed, these statutes specify, often in extraordinary detail, the answer to nearly every conceivable question about abortion,” she continued. “Who may perform abortions? Only doctors. Where may abortions be performed? Within 30 miles of a hospital where the doctor has admitting privileges. When may abortions be performed? Prior to viability or 20 weeks of pregnancy except when necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother or in a medical emergency.”

Many Republicans, including Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski who had been so looking forward to throwing women in prison for having abortions, were disappointed in the ruling and argued that this is something that should be left to legislators and voters. Except the thing is, it is actually up to the judicial branch to make these kinds of calls. If Republican legislators would like to issue a new law with the exact same parameters, they are free to try and get that through, or to propose it in a ballot measure. Of course, given that Tony Evers is a Democrat and Wisconsin voters did just elect the very vocally pro-choice Janet Protasiewicz over the desperate objections of Republicans, they probably won’t be able to pull that one off.

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And Here’s Some Less Good News …

Our least favorite Christian Nationalist white rapper, Michigan state Rep. Josh Schriver, has introduced legislation that would classify abortion as a homicide and also change the definitions of every criminal statute involving homicide, assault, and battery to also apply to “an unborn child in the same manner as they would if the victim were an individual who had been born alive.”

Thankfully, Democrats have a majority in the Michigan Senate (though not the state House of Representatives) and the legislation is about as likely to pass as Josh Schriver is to win “America’s Got Talent.”

Still, there are other states that could use the bills as model legislation, and that is a possibility considering how jazzed some prominent forced birthers are about it.

“House Bill 4671 is the first legislation in Michigan state history that would establish equal protection of the laws for preborn children,” Foundation to Abolish Abortion President Bradley Pierce said. “This bill would simply make murdering anyone illegal for everyone, in recognition that preborn babies are image-bearers of God and are just as worthy of legal protection as people who have already been born.”

So simple!

Meanwhile, in Iowa …

This week, a law went into effect requiring schools to brainwash children into thinking abortion is bad by forcing them to watch a video on fetal development that “depicts the humanity of the unborn child.” The law does not allow for any materials on this subject to come from any organization that performs or promotes abortion or provides referrals to abortion providers — which essentially covers any medical institution in the United States.

They are very excited about this over at the National Review, with columnist Henry Olson cheering it as a measure that will change public opinion on abortion, as long as they pretend its purpose is not to change public opinion on abortion.

Pro-life advocates haven’t had much good news in recent years, as pro-abortion-rights measures have repeatedly passed, even in usually Republican states. They should take heart, however, from a new Iowa law that could help start to turn public opinion in a pro-life direction. […]

These materials need to be well crafted to have an impact. They cannot argue against abortion or even mention it. They cannot use language that pro-lifers might use among themselves to describe what is being shown. That might rankle, but avoiding politically loaded terms also makes it harder for pro-abortion-rights advocates to push back against what is being shown.

It does seem as though “gaslighting people into believing you’re not doing the thing you’re obviously doing” is the order of the day with today’s Republicans.

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Back To Some Good News!

Despite clearly being on a roll with the bad decisions lately, the Supreme Court decided yesterday not to hear Montana officials’ appeal of a Montana state Supreme Court ruling that determined that the state’s requirement that minors get parental consent for abortion violated their own constitution.

Apparently the case was such a “poor vehicle,” as Justice Samuel Alito called it, that even he and Justice Clarence Thomas opposed taking up the case. Though considering how sympathetic he was to the underlying arguments, we probably have reason to worry about what will happen when someone finds a similar case that’s not a total lemon.