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Debate on abortion access turns to Wisconsin high court race

Wisconsin Abortion
Protesters stand in the Wisconsin Capitol Rotunda in early 2023 during a march supporting overturning Wisconsin’s near total ban on abortion. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

By SCOTT BAUER
Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — National groups on both sides of the abortion fight on Wednesday pledged significant spending in the race for a pivotal seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, tossing the perennial battleground state into the spotlight of the searing debate over abortion access.

The winner of the April 4 general election will determine majority control of the court, which is expected to rule on cases affecting abortion, gerrymandered legislative districts and voting rights heading into the 2024 presidential election. The court, with a 4-3 conservative tilt, came within one vote of overturning President Joe Biden’s win in the state in 2020, and both major parties are preparing for another close margin in next year’s presidential contest.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Janet Protasiewicz, who campaigned as an abortion rights supporter and received the most votes in Tuesday’s primary, wasted no time attacking her Republican-backed opponent, Dan Kelly. Both are seeking to replace a retiring conservative justice.

Protasiewicz launched a pair of new television ads Wednesday, including one labeling Kelly an “extremist” because of his position on abortion. Kelly is endorsed by the state’s three largest anti-abortion groups, while Protasiewicz is endorsed by EMILY’s List, which works nationwide to elect Democratic abortion rights supporters.

State and national Planned Parenthood political groups say they expect to spend in the seven figures, but would say only that their total would be more than $1 million to support Protasiewicz.

Their strategy will include radio, TV and online advertising, plus direct mail. Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin has hired staff across the state to support door-to-door and other campaign efforts.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, one of the most influential groups in the anti-abortion movement, said it had committed “six figures” to helping elect Kelly during the primary campaign through mailers, phone calls and text messages. The group said in a statement that it plans to continue supporting Kelly during the general election through its Women Speak Out campaign organization.

Protasiewicz told supporters at her victory party that if Kelly wins, he will vote to uphold Wisconsin’s 1849 law banning abortions, a claim repeated in her new ad. The law, enacted a year after Wisconsin became a state, went back into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. A Democratic-backed lawsuit seeking to overturn the ban is expected to make its way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court this year or the next.

Kelly has expressed opposition to abortion in the past, including in a 2012 blog post in which he said the Democratic Party and the National Organization for Women were committed to normalizing the taking of human life. Kelly also has done legal work for Wisconsin Right to Life.

He has cited Protasiewicz’s support for abortion rights as evidence that she’s willing to rule based on “personal tastes and desires” rather than what the law dictates.

“It is just unbelievable that a judicial candidate would do that,” Kelly said Wednesday on WTMJ-AM radio. “But that’s the fight. It really is to maintain the constitutional order in the state of Wisconsin, to make sure that we live under the rule of law and not the rule of Janet.”

Spending on the race is expected to to shatter the previous high for a state supreme court race, which was $15.2 million in Illinois in 2004.

More than $9 million has already been spent on the primary for television ads by both sides, according to a tally by AdImpact Politics. Republican megadonor Richard Uihlein has given at least $1.5 million to Fair Courts America, a group that ran ads supporting Kelly.

Outside groups spent about $2.5 million to benefit Kelly and about an equal amount attacking his conservative primary challenger, whom Democrats viewed as a tougher potential general election opponent. While the race is officially nonpartisan, the candidates have clear positions that lean liberal or conservative on some major topics.

The Wisconsin Democratic Party endorsed Protasiewicz immediately after her win and is also poised to spend big on the race. It raised $3.5 million in the first five weeks of the year, compared with just $56,000 by the Wisconsin Republican Party.

While turnout in off-year spring elections is always fairly low, there are signs it will be higher this year. Turnout for Tuesday’s primary neared 21%, the highest in at least 20 years.

Republicans are trying to motivate conservative voters by placing two measures opposed by Democrats on the April ballot, including one asking if certain adults must be searching for work to receive “welfare benefits.”

In a potentially positive sign for Democrats, the total primary votes for Protasiewicz and another liberal candidate who finished a distant fourth were nearly 8 percentage points higher than the votes for Kelly and the other conservative.

Kelly was endorsed by Trump in 2020, when he was on the same ballot as the Democratic presidential primary and trying to win a full term on the court after serving four years following an appointment.

He ended up losing that race to Justice Jill Karofsky by more than 10 percentage points. Afterward he worked for both the state and national Republican parties, including advising on the scheme in Wisconsin to have fake electors cast ballots for Trump.

“This is an election that we know is going to largely focus on abortion and the ability to make a health care decision, and other important issues like voting rights and redistricting,” Democratic strategist Melissa Baldauff said. “These are issues that the people of Wisconsin are very clear on their position and are not aligned with Dan Kelly.”

Republican leaders urged unity following the bitter primary battle between Kelly and conservative Waukesha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Dorow.

“Now is the time to unite and ensure our Supreme Court stays in conservative hands,” Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson tweeted Wednesday.

Dorow urged her supporters to back Kelly.

Wisconsin is not the only battleground state with a high-stakes supreme court election this year.
In Pennsylvania, Republicans are hoping to win a vacant seat to narrow the Democratic majority from 4-2 to 4-3. The primary is May 16 and the general election is Nov. 7.

That court has handled a number of high-profile election cases in the past two years, including deciding disputes over the state’s mail-in voting law and rejecting bids to effectively overturn Biden’s victory.

Associated Press writers Kimberlee Kruesi, Marc Levy and Geoff Mulvihill also contributed to this report.

Minnesota Senate backs abortion rights after marathon debate

Abortion supporters and protesters pack the halls outside the Minnesota Senate chamber on Friday at the state Capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota. (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski)

By STEVE KARNOWSKI
Associated Press

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The Minnesota Senate voted early Saturday after a marathon debate to write broad protections for abortion rights into state statutes, which would make it difficult for future courts to roll back.

Democratic legislative leaders have fast-tracked the bill as one of their top priorities for the 2023 session — in reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last summer to reverse Roe v. Wade.

While a 1995 Minnesota Supreme Court decision known as Doe v. Gomez held that the state constitution protects abortion rights, sponsors want to make sure that those protections remain in force no matter who sits on future courts.

Hundreds of people packed the halls outside the Senate chamber on Friday ahead of the debate, which ended with a 34-33 party-line vote around 3 a.m. Saturday to send the bill to Democratic Gov. Tim Walz for his signature. Abortion rights supporters chanted, “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Abortion bans have got to go,” while opponents sang the hymn “Amazing Grace.”

The authors have dubbed the bill the “PRO Act,” short for “Protect Reproductive Actions.” It would establish that “every individual has a fundamental right to make autonomous decisions about the individual’s own reproductive health” including abortion and contraception.

Walz hopes to sign it before the end of the month. The House passed it last week 69-65 with all Republicans opposed. Rep. Gene Pelowski, of Winona, was the only Democrat to vote no.

Senate Democratic leaders said ahead of Friday’s debate that they had the votes to send it to the governor. They hold only a one-seat majority so they couldn’t afford to lose a single vote, but party discipline held firm on procedural votes and dozens of amendments.

“What Minnesotans are afraid of is to see, potentially, that what happened at the federal level with our U.S. Supreme Court could eventually, in some future time, happen here in Minnesota,” Democratic Sen. Jennifer McEwen, of Duluth, the chief Senate author, said as she led off the debate. “The decisions of our courts, the upholding of our fundamental human rights, are only as strong as the judges who uphold them.”

Republican lawmakers, who complain Minnesota has some of the fewest restrictions on abortion in the country, tried unsuccessfully as the bill went through the committee process to attach “guard rails” such as bans on third-trimester abortions. They offered a long series of similar amendments Friday.

“Today we are not just codifying Roe v. Wade or Doe v. Gomez, as the author has indicated, we are enacting the most extreme bill in the country,” said Republican Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, of East Grand Forks.

Minnesota had several restrictions in place, including a 24-hour waiting period and parental notification requirements, until a district court judge last summer declared them unconstitutional.

A separate bill making its way through the Legislature would strike those restrictions from the statute books in case that ruling is reversed on appeal. That bill would also repeal statistical reporting requirements that the judge left in force.

Anti-abortion groups say the bills, assuming they’re enacted, will put Minnesota on the “extreme side” of the abortion rights spectrum.

“Mothers and babies deserve a far more humane and compassionate approach,” Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, said in a statement.

But Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States, told reporters that third-trimester abortions are “incredibly rare” and almost always happen under “very tragic” circumstances such as fetal abnormalities or threats to the mother’s health. She said those decisions should be made between a patient and their medical provider, not on the floors of the Legislature.

The Minnesota Department of Health’s latest annual report on abortions recorded only one abortion between 25 and 30 weeks in 2021, with none reported later.

New lawsuits target state restrictions on abortion pills

Boxes of the drug mifepristone sit on a shelf at the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 2022. Lawsuits have been filed in West Virginia and North Carolina challenging the states’ restrictions on the use of abortion pills. (AP File Photo/Allen G. Breed)

By MATTHEW PERRONE
AP Health Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supporters of abortion rights filed separate lawsuits Wednesday challenging two states’ abortion pill restrictions, the opening salvo in what’s expected to be a protracted legal battle over access to the medications.

The lawsuits argue that limits on the drugs in North Carolina and West Virginia run afoul of the federal authority of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which has approved the abortion pill as a safe and effective method for ending pregnancy.

The cases were brought by a North Carolina physician who prescribes the pill, mifepristone, and GenBioPro, which makes a generic version of the drug and sued in West Virginia.

While the federal court lawsuits target specific state laws, they represent key legal tests that could eventually determine access to abortion for millions of women. Medication recently overtook in-clinic procedures as the most common form of abortion in the U.S.

The new litigation turns on a longstanding principle that federal law, including FDA decisions, pre-empt state laws. Indeed, few states have ever tried to fully ban an FDA-approved drug because of past rulings in the agency’s favor.

But with the fall of Roe v. Wade there’s little precedent for the current patchwork of laws governing abortion.

After the Supreme Court overturned the decision in June, previously adopted restrictions on abortion kicked in and two states adopted new ones. Currently, bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy are being followed in 13 states.

On top of that, 19 states — including North Carolina and West Virginia — have separate laws controlling how, when and where physicians can prescribe and dispense abortion drugs.

“West Virginia cannot override the FDA’s safety and efficacy determinations, nor can it disrupt the national market for this medication,” David Frederick, an attorney representing GenBioPro, said in a statement.

Legal experts foresee years of court battles over access to the pills.

North Carolina bans nearly all abortions after 20 weeks, with narrow exceptions for urgent medical emergencies. Physicians can only prescribe medication abortion after state-mandated counseling for their patients and must dispense the drug in person.

The lawsuit, filed by Dr. Amy Bryant, an obstetrician and gynecologist, argues that such requirements contradict FDA-approved labeling for the drug and interfere with her ability to treat patients.

“We know from years of research and use that medication abortion is safe and effective — there’s no medical reason for politicians to interfere or restrict access to it,” Bryant said in a statement provided by the Expanding Medication Abortion Access project, an abortion rights group working on legal challenges to state laws.

The office of Attorney General Josh Stein, who is a defendant in the complaint because he’s the state chief law enforcement officer, was reviewing the complaint on Wednesday, his spokesperson Nazneen Ahmed wrote in an email. Stein, a Democrat who announced last week a bid for governor in 2024, is an abortion-rights supporter.

The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000 to end pregnancy, when used in combination with a second drug, misoprostol. The combination is approved for use up to the 10th week of pregnancy.

For more than 20 years, FDA limited dispensing of the drug to a subset of specialty offices and clinics, due to safety concerns. In rare cases, the drug combination can cause excess bleeding, requiring emergency care. But since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency has repeatedly eased restrictions and expanded access, increasing demand even as state laws make the pills harder to get for many women.

In late 2021, the agency eliminated the in-person requirement for the pill, saying a new scientific review showed no increase in safety complications if the drug is taken at home. That change also permitted the pill to be prescribed via telehealth and shipped by mail-order pharmacies.

Earlier this year the FDA further loosened restrictions by allowing brick-and-mortar pharmacies to dispense the drug, provided they undergo certification.

That change was made at the request of the two drug manufactures: GenBioPro and Danco Laboratories, which makes brand-name Mifeprex.

In its West Virginia lawsuit, GenBioPro argues that state laws interfere with drug regulations crafted by the FDA, which has sole authority over the approval and regulation of all U.S. drugs.

West Virginia’s law outlaws most abortions, with some exceptions for rape and incest victims and in cases of life-threatening medical emergencies and nonviable pregnancies. The near-total ban, signed into law in September, supersedes earlier laws on abortion pill access.

“The ban and restrictions make it impossible for GenBioPro to market and distribute mifepristone in West Virginia in accordance with FDA’s requirements,” the company states in its suit filed in the state’s southern federal district.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said he would defend the new abortion law.

“While it may not sit well with manufacturers of abortion drugs, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that regulating abortion is a state issue,” he said in a statement.

Abortion opponents have filed their own lawsuits seeking to halt use of the pill, including a Texas suit arguing that the FDA overstepped its authority in approving the medication. Anti-abortion groups on Wednesday vowed to support state abortion limits.

“We stand with the people of North Carolina and West Virginia against the abortion lobby’s reckless push to mandate abortion on demand in every state,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America group.

Mifepristone dilates the cervix and blocks the effects of the hormone progesterone, which is needed to sustain a pregnancy. Misoprostol, a drug also used to treat stomach ulcers, is taken 24 to 48 hours later. It causes the uterus to cramp and contract, causing bleeding and expelling pregnancy tissue.

Associated Press writers Gary Robertson and Leah Willingham also contributed to this report.

‘Here again’: Abortion activists rally 50 years after Roe

Protesters are seen in the Wisconsin Capitol Rotunda during a march supporting overturning Wisconsin’s near total ban on abortion on Sunday in Madison. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

By CLAIRE RUSH and HARM VENHUIZEN
Associated Press/Report for America

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — From beach cities to snow-covered streets, abortion supporters rallied by the thousands on Sunday to demand protections for reproductive rights and mark the 50th anniversary of the now-overturned Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision that established federal protections for the procedure.

The reversal of Roe in June unleashed a flurry of legislation in the states, dividing them between those that have restricted or banned abortion and those that have sought to defend access. The Women’s March, galvanized during Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration in 2017 amid a national reckoning over sexual assaults, said it has refocused on state activism after Roe was tossed.

“This fight is bigger than Roe,” Women’s March said in a tweet. “They thought that we would stay home and that this would end with Roe — they were wrong.”

A dozen Republican-governed states have implemented sweeping bans on abortion, and several others seek to do the same. But those moves have been offset by gains on the other side.

Abortion opponents were defeated in votes on ballot measures in Kansas, Michigan and Kentucky.

State courts have blocked several bans from taking effect. Myriad efforts are underway to help patients travel to states that allow abortions or use medication for self-managed abortions. And some Democratic-led states have taken steps to shield patients and providers from lawsuits originating in states where the procedure is banned.

Organizers with the Women’s March said their strategy moving forward will focus largely on measures at the state level. But freshly energized anti-abortion activists are increasingly turning their attention to Congress, with the aim of pushing for a potential national abortion restriction down the line.

Sunday’s main march was held in Wisconsin, where upcoming elections could determine the state Supreme Court’s power balance and future abortion rights. But rallies took place in dozens of cities, including Florida’s state capital of Tallahassee, where Vice President Kamala Harris gave a fiery speech before a boisterous crowd.

“Can we truly be free if families cannot make intimate decisions about the course of their own lives?” Harris said. “And can we truly be free if so-called leaders claim to be … ‘on the vanguard of freedom’ while they dare to restrict the rights of the American people and attack the very foundations of freedom?”

In Madison, thousands of abortion rights supporters donned coats and gloves to march in below-freezing temperatures through downtown to the state Capitol.

“It’s just basic human rights at this point,” said Alaina Gato, a Wisconsin resident who joined her mother, Meg Wheeler, on the Capitol steps to protest.

They said they plan to vote in the April Supreme Court election. Wheeler also said she hoped to volunteer as a poll worker and canvass for Democrats, despite identifying as an independent voter.

“This is my daughter. I want to make sure she has the right to choose whether she wants to have a child,” Wheeler said.

Buses of protestors streamed into the Wisconsin capital from Chicago and Milwaukee, armed with banners and signs calling for the Legislature to repeal the state’s ban.

Eliza Bennett, a Wisconsin OBGYN who said she had to stop offering abortion services to her patients after Roe was overturned, called on lawmakers to put the choice back in the hands of women. “They should be making decisions about what’s best for their health, not state legislatures,” she said.

Abortions are unavailable in Wisconsin due to legal uncertainties faced by abortion clinics over whether an 1849 law banning the procedure is in effect. The law, which prohibits abortion except to save the patient’s life, is being challenged in court.

Some also carried weapons. Lilith K., who declined to provide their last name, stood on the sidewalk alongside protestors, holding an assault rifle and wearing a tactical vest with a holstered handgun.

“With everything going on with women and other people losing their rights, and with the recent shootings at Club Q and other LGBTQ night clubs, it’s just a message that we’re not going to take this sitting down,” Lilith said.

The march also drew counter-protestors. Most held signs raising religious objections to abortion rights. “I don’t really want to get involved with politics. I’m more interested in what the law of God says,” John Goeke, a Wisconsin resident, said.

In the absence of Roe v. Wade’s federal protections, abortion rights have become a state-by-state patchwork.

Since June, near-total bans on abortion have been implemented in Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. Legal challenges are pending against several of those bans. The lone clinic in North Dakota relocated across state lines to Minnesota.

Bans passed by lawmakers in Ohio, Indiana and Wyoming have been blocked by state courts while legal challenges are pending. And in South Carolina, the state Supreme Court on Jan. 5 struck down a ban on abortion after six weeks, ruling the restriction violates a state constitutional right to privacy.

Wisconsin’s conservative-controlled Supreme Court, which for decades has issued consequential rulings in favor of Republicans, will likely hear the challenge to the 1849 ban filed in June by the state’s attorney general, Josh Kaul. Races for the court are officially nonpartisan, but candidates for years have aligned with either conservatives or liberals as the contests have become expensive partisan battles.

Women’s rallies were expected to be held in nearly every state on Sunday.

The eldest daughter of Norma McCorvey, whose legal challenge under the pseudonym “Jane Roe” led to the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, was set to attend the rally in Long Beach, California. Melissa Mills said it was her first Women’s March.

“It’s just unbelievable that we’re here again, doing the same thing my mom did,” Mills told The Associated Press. “We’ve lost 50 years of hard work.”

The Women’s March has become a regular event — although interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic — since millions rallied in the United States and around the world the day after Trump’s January 2017 inauguration.

Trump made the appointment of conservative judges a mission of his presidency. The three conservative justices he appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court — Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — all voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Associated Press journalists Chris Megerian and Seung Min Kim also contributed to this report.

Minnesota House backs abortion rights after HHS chief visits

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra speaks at a news conference at the state Capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Thursday, part of a Midwest trip to affirm the Biden administration’s commitment to abortion rights. (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski)

By STEVE KARNOWSKI
Associated Press

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra visited Minnesota on Thursday on a Midwest trip to affirm the Biden administration’s commitment to abortion rights despite the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

Becerra went to a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in St. Paul, then appeared with Gov. Tim Walz and Democratic legislative leaders at a news conference a few hours before the Minnesota House passed a fast-tracked bill to codify abortion rights into state statues by a vote of 69-65.

“You’re going to make history at a time when it seems like regression seems to be more on the table than anything else,” Becerra said. “It is a good day to be in Minnesota.”

Becerra’s visit came three days ahead of Sunday’s 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, which established a national right to abortion that the Supreme Court rolled back in June. The Biden administration is using the anniversary to show that Democrats aren’t giving up on the issue, even as the fight shifts to state legislatures from the divided Congress.

“It is time to follow Minnesota and do what’s right for all Americans,” Becerra said.

The secretary planned to travel Friday to neighboring Wisconsin to visit a family planning clinic in the Milwaukee suburb of Cudahy that lost the right to provide abortions when a statewide ban kicked back into law, and for a roundtable in Milwaukee on reproductive health with Democratic U.S. Sen Tammy Baldwin, of Wisconsin.

Abortion rights in Minnesota are already broadly protected under a 1995 state Supreme Court ruling that declared they’re protected under the state constitution. But Democratic legislative leaders, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal last summer, are rushing to pass statutory protections to ensure that future Minnesota courts can’t undo them on the state level.

Both Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman, of Brooklyn Park, and Senate Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic, of Minneapolis, said they had the votes to pass the bill. The Senate version passed its final committee test Wednesday and could get approved on the floor as early as next week, though Dziedzic declined to be specific about when.

“It is not just an abortion bill,” Democratic Rep. Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn, of Eden Prairie, said at the start of a debate expected to last into the evening. “It does guarantee the fundamental right for every Minnesotan to make personal and private decisions about their reproductive health. What it does not do is change the current landscape of reproductive freedom in Minnesota. This is a secondary level of protection to the constitutional freedoms we currently enjoy.”

But Republican Rep. Jim Nash, of Waconia, called it “the most extreme abortion bill in the entire U.S. It has zero guardrails — zero guardrails.”

Minnesota’s Catholic bishops urged lawmakers to vote no on the bill, as well as separate legislation that’s still moving through the committee process that would delete a list of abortion restrictions from state statutes that a judge declared unconstitutional in July. Together, the bills would leave Minnesota with hardly any limits on abortion.

“We are disappointed to see the quick pace at which these destructive bills are moving, and we hope to give legislators pause,” the bishops wrote. “When contemplating policy on any issue, we must consider all those who will be affected. In this case, that includes the mother, father, and most especially, the unborn child whose life is being taken.”

Legislative leaders hope to put the bill on Walz’s desk by the end of the month for his promised signature. Democratic leaders credit the potency of the abortion rights issue with their takeover of the Minnesota Senate in the November elections.

Walz pledged that women coming to Minnesota for abortions from states where they’re prohibited will be welcomed and protected.

“This piece of legislation will make Minnesota a shining beacon, an island in the upper Midwest,” Walz said.

US Supreme Court says it hasn’t found abortion opinion leaker

People protest following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in Washington, D.C., on June 24. (AP File Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

By MARK SHERMAN and JESSICA GRESKO
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court said Thursday it has not determined who leaked a draft of the court’s opinion overturning abortion rights, but that the investigation continues.

Eight months after Politico published its explosive leak detailing the draft of Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade, the court said its investigative team “has to date been unable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence.”

Never before had an entire opinion made its way to the public before the court was ready to announce it.

Chief Justice John Roberts ordered an investigation the next day into what he termed an “egregious breach of trust.”

Investigators “conducted 126 formal interviews of 97 employees, all of whom denied disclosing the opinion,” the court said.

The investigation concluded that it “is unlikely that the Court’s information technology (IT) systems were improperly accessed by a person outside the Court,” following an examination of the court’s computers, networks, printers, and available call and text logs.

The “risk of both deliberate and accidental disclosures of Court-sensitive information” grew with the coronavirus pandemic and shift to working from home, the report said. More people working from home, “as well as gaps in the Court’s security policies, created an environment where it was too easy to remove sensitive information from the building and the Court’s IT networks,” the report said.

Investigators are continuing to “review and process some electronic data that has been collected and a few other inquiries remain pending,” the report said.

Editorial: Imagine a Legislature that listens to the people

Here’s some simple advice for the state Legislature, whose members were sworn into office last week: Represent the will of the people.

What does that mean? When the public overwhelmingly supports a policy decision, get it done.

We the people of Wisconsin actually agree on a lot.

For example:
— 84% of registered voters in the latest Marquette Law School poll said they support legal abortion in the case of rape and incest. And a majority — 55% — support Roe v. Wade’s constitutional projections. Only 37% of statewide respondents favored the repeal of Roe last June.
Lawmakers should listen. They should get rid of Wisconsin’s ancient law forbidding abortion in virtually all cases, including rape and incest. Approved in 1849 — before women had the right to vote — Wisconsin’s long-dormant law is now enforceable again, forcing women to travel to other states for the procedure.

The Republican-run Legislature shouldn’t cling to a puritanical law that close to 9 out of 10 people oppose across Wisconsin. They should agree with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers that women deserve some freedom to choose.

— 78% in the Marquette poll said they favor more state funding for police. Only 15% were opposed.

That means the next state budget should increase state aid to local governments, because local governments run police and sheriff’s departments. The budget also should address drunken driving, which is on the rise.

— 73% support requiring businesses to provide paid leave for the parents of newborns. Only 18% don’t like the idea.

Approving a paid-leave mandate would bring Wisconsin into the civilized world. Democrats have been supportive for years. Now Republicans are coming around.

Get it done to help more families thrive.

— 64% of respondents to a previous Marquette poll supported the legalization of marijuana, similar to neighboring Illinois and Michigan. That was more than twice as many as the 30% who opposed legal pot.

Evers and the Democrats are on board. Top Republican lawmakers last week were moving closer to accepting medical marijuana, which more than 80% of respondents have favored.

Just as the prohibition of alcohol didn’t work a century ago, neither has the ban on recreational marijuana. State lawmakers should respect the freedom of adults to safely use the mild drug, while working to prevent teen use and drugged driving.

— 63% of respondents in the latest Marquette poll support increasing state aid to public schools, rather than steering more money to private schools. Only 29% prioritized private schools.

That means the next state budget should include a solid increase for public K-12 education. It’s not just polling that shows the need for greater investment. Voters approved 64 of 81 school referendums in last fall’s election.

Why would the Republican-run Legislature disregard the will of the people in so many cases? The main reason is gerrymandering. They don’t have to fear voters because they’ve shaped their legislative districts to unfair advantage. While the two major parties collected similar numbers of votes statewide last fall, the Republican-controlled Legislature nonetheless maintained huge majorities of 64-35 in the Assembly and 21-11 in Senate.

Gerrymandering is the main reason why.

The Marquette poll asked voters about that, too, back in late 2021:

— 63% of respondents (including 62% of Republicans) favored a nonpartisan commission to draw fair voting districts. Only a quarter of those surveyed said the politicians should control the process.

Lawmakers, please respect your constituents. Approve nonpartisan redistricting the way the Republicans in Iowa have done, with bipartisan backing. That’s the most important action of all.

From the Wisconsin State Journal

Abortion ban likely headed to state Supreme Court

By SCOTT BAUER
Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Republicans who control the Legislature are divided over whether to push for rape and incest abortion exceptions in the face of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ pledge to veto any bill that keeps the state’s 173-year-old ban in place.

Evers and Democrats are suing to overturn the 1849 law, which went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling that made abortions legal. The state law is a near-total abortion ban, with no exceptions for rape or incest and unclear language about protections for the health of the mother.

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos told The Associated Press on Thursday that he will push for passage of a bill granting clear exceptions to protect the life and health of the mother and in cases of rape and incest.

“I’m going to work hard to make it happen,” Vos said. “I think it’s the right public policy and I think it’s where the public is.”

His position puts Vos at odds not only with Evers, but also with fellow Republican Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu. He told the AP that he doesn’t intend to bring forward any bill in the Senate granting abortion exceptions because he knows it will be vetoed by Evers.

“I’m not sure why I would make my caucus go through such a difficult vote if the governor is going to veto it,” he said, adding that it was a “very personal issue” for many Senate Republicans based on their religious beliefs.

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard said if Senate Republicans are struggling with the issue, “maybe they should reflect a little bit deeper and restore reproductive freedoms for people.”

Both the Senate and Assembly must approve an identical bill before it heads to the governor, who can either sign it into law or veto it. Evers vetoed bills last session that attempted to make abortions more difficult, part of a record-high number of vetoes he issued during his first term.

Vos said that while he opposes abortion, he is willing to compromise to allow for exceptions that would also clarify the 1849 law.

“Let’s see if there’s some middle ground where we can find consensus,” Vos said. “I don’t know why (Evers) wouldn’t do that other than politics.”

Evers reiterated to the AP on Tuesday that he would veto any bill that keeps the 1849 ban in place, even if it would mean that victims of rape and incest could not get abortions in Wisconsin. Clinics that had provided abortions prior to Roe v. Wade being overturned stopped scheduling abortions while the lawsuit challenging the ban plays out.

“I’d love to go back to where we were with Roe v. Wade,” Evers said. “That’s always been my position. And so the idea that I’d agree to essentially an 1849 law, that is a nonstarter.”

Republicans have twice rejected attempts by Evers to overturn the ban.

Absent the unlikely scenario of the Legislature approving a law change that Evers signs, the fate of Wisconsin’s abortion ban will likely rest with the state Supreme Court. An April election will determine whether conservatives maintain their 4-3 majority. If liberals win the seat, they would have a 4-3 majority starting in August.

A seismic reversal in US abortion rights

By The Associated Press

After decades of abortion rights, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and suddenly abortion was illegal in parts of the country. The months leading up to the momentous decision were marked by states passing “trigger bans,” which would go into effect if the high court ruled. Adding to the political intrigue, the decision was leaked several weeks before it was officially released, leading to an investigation into the source of the leak. When the decision came down in June, women across the U.S. suddenly found themselves living in states where abortion wasn’t legal. Abortion opponents heralded a monumental victory, while abortion rights supporters mobilized to help women travel to places where they could get an abortion if they needed it.

THE BACKGROUND: After decades of abortion rights, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and suddenly abortion was illegal in parts of the country.

The months leading up to the momentous decision were marked by states passing “trigger bans,” which would go into effect if the high court ruled. Adding to the political intrigue, the decision was leaked several weeks before it was officially released, leading to an investigation into the source of the leak.

When the decision came down in June, women across the U.S. suddenly found themselves living in states where abortion wasn’t legal. Abortion opponents heralded a monumental victory in their fight to , while abortion rights supporters mobilized to help women travel to places where they could get an abortion if they needed it.

Reporters for the Associated Press covered the story across the country.

LINDSEY TANNER, medical writer based in Chicago, who interviewed doctors and protestors:
In more than a decade of covering abortion, what stands out is the difficulty in finding doctors and patients willing to go on the record and be interviewed. I think the overturning of Roe created a sense of desperation and urgency among key players that kind of upended that. My source work led me to an Ohio clinic where the director gave AP — myself and VJ Patrick Orsagos — unbelievable access, including to any patients who might be willing to share their stories. Our reporting MO was to just ask (even if we thought the answer might be no) and we found a young mother of three who answered yes to everything — we could use her name, observe her getting an ultrasound to date the pregnancy at a clinic in Ohio, be in the tiny room where she had the actual abortion at a clinic in Indiana. This woman was astonishingly open and matter-of-fact, and showed zero emotion during the extremely intimate procedure and aftermath — not what one might have expected. We responded in the same way, and over two days were able to gain her trust. It was important to not tell her story in a judgmental, unsympathetic way. Her candidness gave us a window into her life and helped us do that.

I found doctors who provide abortions who were equally accessible and candid, including the OB-GYN who treated the Ohio woman. She unabashedly views abortion as routine health care and had no qualms about being observed doing that work.

Another OB-GYN stands out — one in Texas who described in detail treating women with doomed pregnancies and feeling forced by the law to allow them to get sicker before he could intervene.

“Do no harm” is the oath all MDs must take and it was clear this physician felt he was being forced to violate that on a routine basis. It makes me wonder if many OB-GYNs will start switching to other specialties, and if medical students will choose not to practice obstetrics. Their choices already are being limited by restrictions on teaching abortion care in medical schools and residencies.

Another young woman who I interviewed at the Indiana clinic stands out. Her eyes will always haunt me: They were filled with pure terror. She stared hard at me as she told her story: a factor worker and mother of one in an abusive relationship who simply could not afford another child. She was terrified of repeating the mistakes her own mother made. And terrified that her super religious father would find out about her abortion. She said she truly believed she’d be going to Hell.

NOREEN NASIR, video journalist based in New York, who reported from Jackson, Mississippi, telling the story of a woman who had multiple abortions instead of having a child she couldn’t afford to raise, and tried at one point to have another abortion but was told it was too late:

So much of the coverage can focus on this story as a debate, highlighting the loudest voices on both sides, like politicians or protesters, people who are out on the streets, holding signs, people who have no problem yelling their opinions. And of course, there’s a place for sharing those voices. But when it comes down to the people that this affects the most, it’s rare that we hear directly from them — to hear from somebody who has gone through that lived experience, to fully understand their life circumstances and what led them to make one decision or another, and to really hear from them about the emotions behind their decision, like the pain, the judgment that they may have faced. I think that part of it can get lost when we focus on just the loudest voices in the room.

The women most at risk now are poor women who don’t have access to expensive flights if they live in a state where they can’t now have an abortion at a certain time, and those are the voices that we tend not to hear from, often due to privacy and security concerns. But those are also the voices that we tend not to really value. So it’s all the more important to tell compelling stories that challenge people to continue to pay attention even when they might not see themselves reflected in the people that are most affected.

MATT SEDENSKY, national writer based in New York, who reported from Tupelo, Mississippi, and Columbia, South Carolina, on the anti-abortion movement:

Once the Supreme Court agreed to hear Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, much of the focus was understandably on those in the abortion rights community, who saw the case as a historic threat to women’s rights given the ideological breakdown of justices. What seemed equally apparent, though, was that no matter the case’s outcome, it would be a gripping moment for those opposed to abortion, too. A win would be the thrilling result of a half-century of groundwork, of tireless protests and of countless prayers. A loss would amount to a monumental disappointment that everything that had been invested over so many decades could not translate to victory even with a handful of new court appointments seemingly tilting odds in their favor.

I wanted to find a way to capture what the moment meant to people for whom anti-abortion advocacy has been their life’s work. I zeroed in on a group from Columbia, South Carolina, called  A Moment of Hope, that fans volunteers out around a Planned Parenthood office in hopes of talking women out of ending their pregnancies. By the time I traveled to shadow them, the draft of the Dobbs decision had already been leaked. I thought it would be at the forefront of everyone’s minds. Instead, I was surprised to hear people tell me how little it factored into their anti-abortion work. They were committed, they said, to returning to the clinic each day, no matter if Roe was upended or not.

Planned Parenthood advocacy programs manager Allison Terracio stands outside the clinic to escort patients showing up for abortion appointments as Valerie Berry, program manager for the anti-abortion group, A Moment of Hope, holds up a sign at the entrance in Columbia, South Carolina, on May 27. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Another facet of the anti-abortion movement that stood out to me was that, despite how entwined the issue has become with politics, it remains an issue that people have deep emotional and spiritual feelings about. Many I spoke with made prayer for an end to abortion a centerpiece of their religious life. I ultimately decided to tell this story through the eyes of one woman who spent decades praying for the very moment that would arrive in June: For the court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

AMY FORLITI, reporter based in Minneapolis, who tracked how each state regulated abortion, and the legal implications:

As the year ends, it will have been about six months since the Dobbs ruling. One thing Geoff Mulvihill and I are looking at tracking is prosecutions. You know, many of these states with restrictions have said they would criminalize people — doctors specifically — who performed abortions or provided abortion medication. So far, we haven’t seen any prosecutions that we know of. So it will be interesting to see how the prosecutions bear out going forward. It will also be interesting to see what various states do in upcoming legislative sessions. We just wrote a story last week out of Minnesota — for the first time in several years, Democrats are in control of both chambers of the Legislature and the governor’s office, and one of the first things they plan to do is codify abortion in the state. So it will be interesting to see what states do, both on the more restrictive side and on the side of abortion rights. It will be interesting to see, once numbers start coming in, what abortion rates look like in various states, particularly looking at the number of people who may be traveling from more restrictive states to less restrictive states to get abortions. I think that all of those things are going to be important as we continue to follow the story.

Iowa judge blocks effort to ban most abortions in state

By SCOTT McFETRIDGE and DAVID PITT
Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An effort to ban most abortions in Iowa was blocked Monday by a state judge who upheld a court decision made three years ago.

Judge Celene Gogerty found there was no process for reversing a permanent injunction that blocked the abortion law in 2019.

Gov. Kim Reynolds said in a statement that she would appeal the decision to the Iowa Supreme Court.

Current state law bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, but Reynolds asked the courts to reverse the 2019 decision that blocked a bill she had signed into law the previous year. That law prohibited abortions once cardiac activity can be detected — the “fetal heartbeat” concept — which usually happens around six weeks of pregnancy and is often before many women know they’re pregnant.

Reynolds argued that because of decisions earlier this year by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Iowa Supreme Court that found woman have no constitutional right to abortion, the Iowa judge should reverse the 2019 decision blocking the abortion law.

Lawyers for Iowa’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, countered that there is no precedent or legal support for reversing a decision finalized by a judge years earlier. They said Reynolds must go through the legislative process to pass a new law.

Reynolds did not appeal the decision when it was handed down in 2019.

At that time, Judge Michael Huppert’s decision was based on U.S. Supreme Court precedent, as well as an Iowa Supreme Court decision in 2018 that declared abortion a fundamental right under the Iowa Constitution.

Reynolds, who supports outlawing abortions, decided to turn to the courts to impose stricter abortion limits instead of calling a special session of the legislature to pass a new law.

In her decision Monday, Gogerty wrote that state law didn’t give her the power to dissolve the permanent injunction and let the new abortion law take effect. Even if she had that power, Gogerty wrote that the Iowa Supreme Court decision finding no constitutional right to abortion didn’t substantially change how the abortion law would have been judged under the Iowa Constitution.

In her statement, the governor expressed disappointment the law approved by the Legislature wasn’t allowed to take effect, but she noted an appeal to the state Supreme Court was always expected, regardless of the judge’s decision. The current court is far more conservative than in 2018 when it declared a right to abortion, with five of the court’s seven members named by Reynolds.

“The decision of the people’s representatives to protect life should be honored, and I believe the court will ultimately do so,” Reynolds said. “As long as I’m governor, I will continue to fight for the sanctity of life and for the unborn.”

Planned Parenthood North Central States didn’t immediately respond to a request for a comment about the ruling.

Although Iowa’s law blocked by the courts seeks to prevent abortions when a “fetal heartbeat” can be detected, this does not easily translate to medical science. That’s because the point where advanced technology can detect that first visual flutter, the embryo isn’t yet a fetus, and it doesn’t have a heart. An embryo is termed a fetus eight weeks after fertilization.

The Iowa law contains exceptions for medical emergencies, including threats to the mother’s life, rape, incest, and fetal abnormality.

Indiana judge won’t block probe over 10-year-old’s abortion

Dr. Caitlin Bernard, a reproductive health care provider, speaks during an abortion rights rally on June 25 at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis. Todd Rokita, Indiana’s Republican attorney general, on Nov. 30 asked the state medical licensing to discipline Bernard, an Indianapolis doctor who has spoken publicly about providing an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim who traveled from Ohio after its more-restrictive abortion law took effect. (Jenna Watson/The Indianapolis Star via AP, File)

By TOM DAVIES
Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana’s Republican attorney general can keep investigating an Indianapolis doctor who spoke publicly about providing an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim from neighboring Ohio, a judge ruled Friday.

An attempt to block a probe by Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office was rejected by Marion County Judge Heather Welch. She also ruled Friday in a separate lawsuit that Indiana’s abortion ban adopted in August violates the state’s religious freedom law signed by then-Gov. Mike Pence in 2015. The Indiana abortion ban, however, has been on hold since mid-September as courts consider a challenge from abortion clinic operators who argue the ban violates the state constitution.

The judge’s ruling on the investigation into Dr. Caitlin Bernard came two days after the attorney general’s office asked the state medical licensing board to discipline Bernard, alleging she violated state law by not reporting the girl’s child abuse to Indiana authorities and broke patient privacy laws by telling a newspaper reporter about the girl’s treatment.

That account sparked a national political uproar in the weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, with some news outlets and Republican politicians suggesting Bernard fabricated the story. The girl had been unable to get an abortion in Ohio after a more restrictive abortion law took effect there.

Bernard filed a lawsuit against the state attorney general last month, arguing Rokita’s office was wrongly justifying the investigation with “frivolous” consumer complaints submitted by people with no personal knowledge about the girl’s treatment. Bernard and her lawyers maintain the girl’s abuse had already been reported to Ohio police before the doctor ever saw the child.

But the judge turned down Bernard’s request for an injunction to block the investigation. Welch ruled the medical licensing board now had jurisdiction over the matter since the attorney general filed the complaint on Wednesday. That complaint asked the state medical licensing board to impose “appropriate disciplinary action” without specifying a proposed penalty. The board, which has the authority to suspend, revoke or place on probation a doctor’s license, said Friday it had received the complaint but that no hearing date had been set.

Welch, however, found that Rokita wrongly made public comments about investigating Bernard before the complaint was filed. Welch wrote that Rokita’s statements “are clearly unlawful breaches of the licensing investigations statute’s requirement that employees of the Attorney General’s Office maintain confidentiality over pending investigations until they are so referred to prosecution.”

Bernard’s lawyer, Kathleen DeLaney, criticized Rokita for violating his “duty of confidentiality” and preemptively pushing the case to the medical board, thus “taking it out of the hands of Judge Welch.”

“We are confident in the record and testimony that we have already developed and look forward to presenting Dr. Bernard’s evidence to the Medical Licensing Board,” DeLaney said.

The attorney general’s office said the ruling supported protection of patient privacy rights.

“The doctor and her attorneys initiated this media frenzy from the beginning, and it continues to draw attention to this innocent little girl who is trying to cope with a horrific trauma,” the office said in a statement that did not address the judge’s criticism of Rokita’s public comments on the case.

Bernard provided abortion drugs to the girl in Indianapolis in late June, as she said doctors determined the girl was unable to have an abortion in neighboring Ohio. That’s because Ohio’s “fetal heartbeat” law took effect with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to end women’s constitutional protections for abortion. Such laws ban abortions from the time cardiac activity can be detected in an embryo, which is typically around the sixth week of pregnancy.

Rokita has kept the investigation going even after a 27-year-old man was charged in Columbus, Ohio, with raping the girl and public records obtained by The Associated Press show Bernard met Indiana’s required three-day reporting period for an abortion performed on a girl younger than 16.

In Welch’s ruling on the state’s abortion ban, the judge sided with five residents — who hold Jewish, Muslim and spiritual faiths — who argued that the ban would violate their religious rights on when they believe abortion is acceptable.

“The undisputed evidence establishes that the Plaintiffs do not share the State’s belief that life begins at fertilization or that abortion constitutes the intentional taking of a human life,” Welch wrote. “To the contrary, they have different religious beliefs about when life begins. … Under the law, the Court finds these are sincere religious beliefs.”

Rokita’s office, which has been defending the abortion ban in court, did not immediately comment on the religious freedom lawsuit ruling.

Prosecutors move to dismiss Wisconsin abortion ban challenge (UPDATE)

By TODD RICHMOND
Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A conservative prosecutor is asking a judge to toss out Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul’s lawsuit challenging Wisconsin’s 173-year-old ban on abortions, arguing that it lacks legal merit and that there is no weight to assertions that it is unenforceable because of its age.

Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski filed a motion late Wednesday to dismiss the case. His fellow defendants, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne and Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, filed briefs preserving their rights to seek a dismissal as the case progresses. All three argued that the lawsuit seeks to improperly restrict prosecutorial discretion and that Kaul lacks standing to sue because he hasn’t been personally harmed by the ban.

Urmanski, the only Republican among the three, went further, rejecting Kaul’s argument that the ban is so old that it can no longer be considered to have passed with the consent of the people.
“Wisconsin courts have never recognized that a statute can lose effect through disuse and, even if they had, this case would not warrant application of that principle,” Urmanski’s motion said. “If the Plaintiffs believe the statute lacks the consent of the governed, their appeal should be to the Legislature and the Governor to seek changes in the law, not this Court.”

Kaul spokesperson Gillian Drummond didn’t immediately respond to a message Thursday seeking comment. Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper has given all the parties in the case until Feb. 6 to file briefs expanding on their stances.

The case appears destined to end up before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Conservative justices hold a one-vote majority on the court, but Democrats are banking on a progressive candidate winning the seat of retiring Justice Patience Roggensack in April’s election, giving liberals the edge. The longer the case drags on in the lower courts, the more likely it will come before the Supreme Court after the new justice takes the bench in August.

Kaul filed the lawsuit in Dane County in June days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. Wisconsin outlawed abortion except to save the mother’s life in 1849, but Roe v. Wade invalidated the statute. The reversal in June put the ban back into place.

Kaul argues in the lawsuit that Wisconsin adopted a post-Roe vs. Wade law in 1985 legalizing abortions before a fetus can survive outside the womb that supersedes the ban. The point of viability outside the womb is debatable. Some doctors say it’s around 20 weeks; others say it’s around 28 weeks. The attorney general also maintains that the ban is unenforceable because it’s so old that it was essentially passed without the consent of the people.

Kaul initially sued Republican legislators but dismissed them from the case in September after they argued they’re not responsible for enforcing the ban. He named Ozanne, Chisholm and Urmanski as defendants instead. Three doctors who care for pregnant women have since joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs.

Urmanski has said he plans to enforce the ban in his county. Ozanne and Chisholm have both said they will not prosecute abortions.

Ozanne, who operates in the most liberal-leaning county in the state, opened his filing by asking the court to find that newer statutes have superseded the ban. He then goes on to demand the judge dismiss the challenge, echoing the others’ arguments that Kaul and the doctors haven’t suffered any legal injury because of Ozanne’s actions and that he enjoys immunity from legal challenges to his prosecutorial discretion.