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A Wisconsin pro-life organization has reacted to the state Supreme Court’s July 2 decision to strike down a 19th-century law protecting almost all unborn life, calling it an “egregious ruling” inconsistent with previous court decisions.
As CatholicVote previously reported, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that though the 1849 pro-life law was never formally repealed by the state legislature, it was revoked by implication of other pro-abortion laws enacted after Roe v. Wade.
Pro-life Wisconsin objected to the ruling in a news release, with Matt Sande, the organization’s legislative director, stating that the decision goes against what the state Supreme Court has previously ruled on repeals by implication.
Sande pointed out that in a 2010 case unrelated to abortion, the court had stated, “As we have emphasized, repeals by implication are not favored and will not be presumed unless the intention of the legislature to repeal is clear and manifest.”
“It was certainly never the intent of the legislative authors of modern abortion regulations post-Roe and Casey to repeal s.940.04 [the 1849 law] or they would have expressly done so. They did not,” Sande stated. “They were simply attempting to mitigate the ravages of abortion under the onerous dictates of the Roe/Casey legal regime.”
Sande noted that the court had also said in rulings in 1980 and 1994 that it does not favor implied repeal of laws. Instead, it had previously held that laws, such as the 1849 law, should not be considered overridden by later statutes, as long as those statutes are not inconsistent with, offensive, or repugnant to the previous law.
“In sum, respect for Wisconsin Supreme Court case law history, legislative intent, logic, and justice are not the aim of this radicalized Court; unfettered abortion is,” Sande stated. “Pro-Life Wisconsin will continue the fight to outlaw abortion without exception, pass a personhood amendment enshrining the right to life in the Wisconsin Constitution, and enact pro-life, pro-family legislation that helps build a culture of life in our great state.”
