(The Center Square) – One of the candidates for supreme court in Wisconsin continues to want to take abortion out of the conversation for this spring’s election.
Judge Maria Lazar this week penned another op-ed explaining her stance on Wisconsin’s 20-week abortion law.
“Sensationalized headlines have twisted my comments to suggest I am seeking to change Wisconsin’s abortion laws. Let me be clear: I am a jurist, not a politician. I am not running to impose a heartbeat bill from the bench, and any insinuation to the contrary is false,” she wrote.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week ran a story that said Lazar would be open to a heartbeat bill. She was speaking with students at UW-Whitewater in November.
The paper quoted her as saying “Just make a decision, and make a fair, good decision,” Lazar said. “If they’re going to say heartbeat, I think maybe people can live with that.”
Wisconsin Democrats picked the story up and ran with it, calling her comments an “extreme stance on abortion,” and said she revealed “that she would support a federal heartbeat law – which would ban abortion at roughly six weeks.”
“[Lazar] doesn’t even know if there should be exceptions when a mother’s life is in danger. Voters have rejected these extreme positions before and they will again in April,” Judge Chris Taylor campaign manager Ashley Franz said in a statement.
Lazar said that’s mischaracterizing her stance.
“While I have been honest about my personal values as a mother, those feelings do not dictate my rulings. My role is to follow the law, not to legislate from the bench,” Lazar wrote. “As a judge, my personal views, which include the fact that abortion is not something I would have contemplated for myself, make no difference in my role on the bench. I honor my oath to never legislate from the bench.”
Wisconsin’s Supreme Court last year struck down the state’s 1849 ban on abortion, ruling that it doesn’t really apply to abortions. That leaves Wisconsin with a law that bans abortions after 20 weeks.
But that could change.
Advocates have asked the state’s high court to declare a right to abortion in Wisconsin, but the court has not ruled in the case.
Lazar and Taylor are facing off in April to replace retiring justice Rebecca Bradley.
