AB975 would have placed on the April 2024 ballot a referendum on legalizing abortion up to the 14th week of pregnancy, except in the case of a “medical emergency.”
The Assembly voted to pass AB975 on January 25, 2024, by a vote of 53 to 46. We have assigned pluses to the nays because the care of human life—not its destruction—is the greatest responsibility of government. Wisconsin ought to enforce its 1849 abortion ban and secure the right to life for every pre-born child. The right to life is the most fundamental, God-given, and “unalienable” right asserted in the Declaration of Independence and protected by the Fifth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Moreover, state laws should not be subject to popular votes. Referendums are insufficient safeguards from what the American Founders described as the “dangers of democracy.” Article IV, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution guarantees to “every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,” which implies government limited to the ‘rule of law,’ as opposed to mere unchecked ‘majority rule.’