A Wisconsin circuit court judge has ruled that an 1849 law that classifies the destruction of a fetus by someone other than the mother as a felony does not outlaw abortions, returning the state’s abortion access to its pre-Dobbs status.
Dane County Circuit Court Judge Diane Schlipper on Tuesday reaffirmed a ruling she issued earlier this year, finding that an 1800s-era law “does not apply to consensual abortions, but to feticide.”
After the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling in 2022, the question was raised over whether a Wisconsin state law passed in 1849 could go into effect. Roe had effectively invalidated the law when it was in effect.
I mean, you say “it’s obvious” but we don’t know it to be true unless people vote on it. “Obvious” to you can be “controversial” to somebody else (e.g. it depends on who is being killed and why).
There are many laws older than 100 years that we keep for good reason. Most of the US constitution, theft, land rights, etc. There’s absolutely no reason to think negatively about a law simply based on how “old” it is. If people change their minds over time we pass new laws to reflect that. That’s “how it works”. You can’t simply say “bah, that’s an old weird law lets ignore it now.”