Kaul doesn’t know if he would defend abortion ban

Listen to this article

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Democratic attorney general hopeful Josh Kaul says he would have to study Wisconsin’s abortion ban before deciding whether to defend it in court.

Democrats fear that if President Donald Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, the court will overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that legalized abortion throughout the country. The decision invalidated Wisconsin statutes that prohibit anyone except a mother from performing an abortion.

Kaul has said the ban is dangerous and lawmakers should repeal it. That’s unlikely given that Republicans control the Legislature and Democrats face an uphill struggle to regain the majority in the general election scheduled for November.

Kaul stopped short of saying during a news conference on Thursday that he wouldn’t defend the statutes, saying he would have to conduct a legal analysis to decide if the ban is defensible.