Brad Schimel Wants SCOTUS to Overturn Roe

MADISON, Wis. — Donald Trump’s nomination of a right-wing Supreme Court justice puts a high court decision that currently prohibits the enforcement of the Wisconsin law criminalizing abortion in danger of being overturned. Attorney General Brad Schimel signed on to a 2012 strategy document from a Wisconsin anti-abortion group endorsing enforcement of the law threatening medical professionals and others with felonies.

“Brad Schimel publicly supports jailing doctors and threatening felonies for people who help women get abortions in cases where the mother’s health is at risk or for victims of rape or incest,” said One Wisconsin Now Program Director Analiese Eicher. “He is a politician and a lawyer, not a doctor.”

While Waukesha County District Attorney, Schimel signed on to a 2012 “white paper” from the anti-abortion activist group Wisconsin Right to Life endorsing a strategy of “preserving” a 1955 Wisconsin state statute that would ban abortions even in cases of rape or incest and impose felony charges against doctors who perform abortions in almost every circumstance.

Since the 1973 United States Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, Wisconsin’s criminal abortion statute has been prohibited from being enforced.

In his 2014 campaign for Attorney General, Schimel endorsed other extreme legal positions including saying he would defend other laws severely restricting a woman’s right to make her own decisions about her healthcare like mandating she undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion. Schimel even said he would have defended a state law outlawing interracial marriage, if it were on the books.

Eicher concluded, “Brad Schimel’s radical, legal activism would turn the clock back on women’s health in Wisconsin. It is outrageous he would use heavy handed tactics like threatening doctors and nurses with prison time to make medical decisions for women and their families.”