Wisconsin Case From 1969 Initially Led to Wisconsin's Abortion Ban Being Struck Down

Thursday, August 10th, 2023 -- 10:01 AM

(By Sarah Lehr and Rob Mentzer, Wisconsin Public Radio) On a Saturday in September 1969, a 23-year-old grad student walked into an office inside the Majestic Building in downtown Milwaukee.

According Sarah Lehr and Rob Mentzer with Wisconsin Public Radio, she had been there once before, for a consultation with Dr. Sidney Babbitz. Babbitz was 59 years old and had mostly retired to Florida.

But he was known in whisper networks as a doctor who was willing to perform illegal abortions back in Wisconsin. The woman handed Babbitz a stack of eighteen $50 bills, $900 total, and Babbitz gave her an abortion.

On their way out of the office, Babbitz saw a police officer in the hallway. He told the woman to go back into his office and gave her some pills he said he had forgotten. When they thought the coast was clear, Babbitz took the elevator with her down to the building's lobby.

Another police officer was there waiting for them. What happened next led to a yearslong legal battle, one that eventually upended more than a century of abortion law in Wisconsin. Only hours after her abortion, prosecutors got the woman to appear in a Milwaukee County courtroom.

Initially, she declined to answer questions. At several points, a transcript shows, officials had to ask her to speak up. After the judge gave her immunity from prosecution, she described how Babbitz used dilation and curettage to terminate her pregnancy at about nine weeks.

Her testimony was enough for a judge to grant a warrant to search Babbitz's office. That led to the doctor's arrest, which would spiral into a lawsuit. In 1970, that suit led a federal court to strike down much of a Wisconsin law that had banned abortions.

A few years later, the Babbitz verdict was overshadowed when the U.S. Supreme Court established federal protections for abortion through Roe vs. Wade in 1973. But, now, more than a half a century since the court decision, the Babbitz case may have new relevance.

Clinics across the state stopped performing elective abortions after Roe was overturned in June 2022. That's when the state reverted to a long-dormant 19th-century law that's widely interpreted as banning abortions unless they're done to save a pregnant patient's life.

Just days after Roe was overturned, Wisconsin's Democratic Attorney General sued to try and block prosecutions of abortions under that law, which is the same law used to prosecute Babbitz more than half a century prior.

The AG's ongoing lawsuit briefly references the Babbitz case, noting that a federal court has previously found the law to be unconstitutionally overbroad.

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.