Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski had said the state’s 1849 abortion law — which has since been subsumed by modern state statute — could be used to prosecute abortion providers in the state. But the Dane County court ruled otherwise, finding the law addressed only the legal act of feticide and not abortion itself.
The statute “does not prohibit a consensual medical abortion,” Judge Diane Schlipper wrote in the ruling; per the statute, she said, abortion providers only commit a crime if the abortion occurs “after the fetus or unborn child reaches viability.”
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin said it had made the decision to restore abortion services after “consultation with attorneys, physicians, partners, and other stakeholders.”
Urmanski did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday on Planned Parenthood’s resumption of abortion services and whether or not his office would be pursuing other means to prohibit abortion in the state.
Schlipper noted in her July ruling that the decision was “not a final ruling for purpose of appeal.”
Pro-life groups were quick to respond to Planned Parenthood’s abortion resumption. Wisconsin Family Action called the decision “devastating news for innocent preborn children and Wisconsin mothers who deserve better than abortion,” while Pro-Life Wisconsin said it would continue to “fight for the enforcement of [the state’s] current abortion ban.”