Republican DA asks Wisconsin Supreme Court to decide abortion lawsuit without lower court ruling

A Republican prosecutor is asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to decide whether state law bans abortions before the case goes through any lower appellate courts. The U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade reactivated an 1849 law that conservatives argue banned abortion. A Dane County judge said last summer that the legal language in the ban doesn't use the term “abortion” so the law only prohibits attacking a woman in an attempt to kill her unborn child. Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski is appealing that ruling. He filed a petition Tuesday asking the state Supreme Court to take the case without waiting for decision from a lower appellate court.