MADISON, Wis. — Reporting from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel today laid out extreme politician Brad Schimel’s damning record opposing reproductive freedom in Wisconsin, including his call to enforce Wisconsin’s archaic 1849 abortion ban, which doesn’t include exceptions for rape, incest, or health of the mother. 

But Brad Schimel’s anti-freedom extremism is not a thing of the past. Schimel doubled down on his extremism in recent months when he claimed there was “not a constitutional right to abortion” in Wisconsin, leaving no doubt that Schimel would pull out all the stops to end access to safe and legal abortion care on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

See more of Brad Schimel’s anti-abortion lowlights:

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel bring opposing views on abortion to the Wisconsin Supreme Court race
By: Mary Spicuzza

• Years before Roe was overturned, Schimel supported leaving in place Wisconsin’s 1849 law banning abortion without exceptions for rape or incest.
   
• When he was Waukesha County district attorney, Schimel signed onto a 2012 legal paper that advocated for a plan to make abortion illegal in nearly all cases. The white paper from the anti-abortion group Wisconsin Right to Life argued that the U.S. Supreme Court could overturn Roe and that the 1849 law would then immediately make the procedure illegal in Wisconsin.
   
• “Some people were talking about, ‘Why don’t we take that old 1849 abortion law off the books? Because you can’t enforce it anyway,” Schimel told supporters in Calumet County last summer, according to a recording shared with the Journal Sentinel. “We just said, ‘No, just leave it. You never know. If the Supreme Court does reverse Roe v. Wade, well then we have a law in the books.'”
   
• Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban was put on hold in 2023, but Schimel has defended the law when talking to supporters about the state Supreme Court.
   
• “They’ve got several issues in front of them,” he said in July at an Adams County meet and greet, according to audio of the event shared with the Journal Sentinel. “One is the 1849 ban on abortions, which, by the way — what is flawed about that law? It was passed by both houses of the Legislature in the same form and signed by a governor. That’s all it takes for a law to be a valid law in Wisconsin.”
   
• At another event last summer, Schimel said, “There is not a constitutional right to abortion in our state constitution. That will be a sham if they find that.”
   
• The leader of a stringent anti-abortion group told the Journal Sentinel that members of the organization are personally advocating for Schimel to be elected to the state Supreme Court this spring.
   

Sande said Schimel has not filled out an endorsement questionnaire or sought an endorsement interview. Sande said Pro-Life Wisconsin, which opposes any exceptions for abortions, also did not endorse Schimel in his two races for state attorney general in 2014 or 2018.