Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:21 and sunset is 8:36, for 15 hours, 16 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 47.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress adopts the Lee Resolution severing ties with the Kingdom of Great Britain, although the wording of the formal Declaration of Independence is not adopted until July 4.
Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), overturning Roe v. Wade (1973), the application of an 1849 Wisconsin statute became a legal controversy in Wisconsin. Did that old statute come into force after Dobbs as a ban on abortion, was the statute more limited (and so not a general ban on abortion), or was the 1849 no longer effective under some other principle of law?
In 2023, a Dane County Circuit Court ruled that the 1849 law was limited in scope, and so did not work as a ban on Wisconsin abortions. Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski appealed that circuit court decision, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court took the case directly on appeal.
Today, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, ruled that the 1849 law has been repealed impliedly through fifty years of more recent Wisconsin legislation on abortion. The Legislature retains the right to draft new legislation on abortion policy in the state.
Today’s opinion, Josh Kaul v. Joel Urmanski, 2025 WI 32, No. 2023AP2362 (July 2, 2025), with concurrences and dissents, appears below: