Case: Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin v. Urmanski

This case is about a challenge to 176-year-old Wisconsin Statute § 940.04, that prohibited abortions except in the case to save the life of the mother. The same statute was also challenged in the 2022 lawsuit Kaul v. Urmanski. 

On February 22, 2024, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, a physician, and four private plaintiffs (collectively, “Planned Parenthood”), represented by private counsel, filed a petition to commence an original action in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Planned Parenthood sought to challenge Wisconsin Statute 940.04 (“WS 940.04”), enacted in 1849, that made it a felony to “intentionally destroy the life of an unborn child” unless “necessary to save the life of the mother.”

WS 940.04’s constitutionality had never been considered under Article 1, Section 1 of the Wisconsin State Constitution, but in 1970, a federal court found that WS 940.04 violated an individual’s federal right to privacy. Further consideration was never warranted as the US Supreme Court recognized in Roe v. Wade a federal constitutional right to abortion in 1973. Until 2022, when the US Supreme Court overruled Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Wisconsinites accessed safe and effective abortions within the parameters of Wisconsin’s modern laws that allowed women to choose to end a pregnancy for reasons other than just to save their lives. Once Roe was overruled, some Wisconsin district attorneys and legal commentators opined that Dobbs spontaneously revived WS 940.04, which would cause it to become an enforceable ban on abortion in Wisconsin despite its conflict with Wisconsin’s more modern abortion laws. 

Therefore, Planned Parenthood argued that if WS 940.04 was interpreted to prevent a person from obtaining an abortion in all circumstances except to save the life of the mother, it would have violated a person’s right to life, liberty, and equal protection guaranteed by Article 1, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution. Furthermore, this interpretation of WS 940.04 would have also violated a physician’s right to equal protection and right to liberty guaranteed by the Wisconsin constitution by impermissibly and arbitrarily preventing them from providing safe, effective, and desired abortions to their patients for reasons other than to save the life of the mother. Planned Parenthood brought this action against three district attorneys as class representatives for all 71 elected district attorneys in Wisconsin.

A number of different parties moved to intervene in the spring and summer.  On April 25, Wisconsin Right to Life, Wisconsin Family Action, and Pro-Life Wisconsin moved to intervene or, in the alternative, to file an amicus brief. Then, on July 2, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin denied the motion to intervene, finding that the proposed-intervenors, as lobbying and public education groups, did not demonstrate sufficient legal interest to support intervention as a manner of right. That same day, the Supreme Court also granted the leave to commence an original action and assumed jurisdiction over the entire action. 

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Milwaukee, on behalf of himself and the unborn of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, and the plaintiffs in Kaul v. Urmanski moved to intervene on July 15th and 16th, respectively. In the meantime, the parties engaged in briefing on the question of certifying a class of Wisconsin district attorneys. 

On July 2, 2025, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin issued its decision in Kaul v. Urmanski, holding that § 940.04 was impliedly repealed and did not ban abortion, and accordingly dismissed this case. The case is now closed.