State of Wisconsin v. Deborah J. Z. involves the prosecution of Deborah Zimmerman for attempted murder for drinking heavily while pregnant in an effort to end her pregnancy. The following morning, she gave birth to a baby girl whose blood alcohol level was 0.3 percent just prior to birth. Adults are legally intoxicated at 0.1 percent.  The baby was born with a low birth weight and suffers from mild physical abnormalities.  The state prosecuted Zimmerman under its "born alive" statute, which allows a person to be charged with murder if he or she harms a pregnant woman and the baby is born alive but later dies from its injuries. Prosecutors wanted to extend the law to include attempted murder if the baby is born with injuries but survives.

Instead of considering the "born alive" law, the court looked to the definition of "human being" under the state's murder and attempted murder statutes. Under these statutes, "human being" is defined expressly as "one who has been born alive." The mother's actions in this case, the court determined, were directed at an unborn fetus and therefore were not crimes under the state statutes. The court also side stepped the state's "born alive" law by asserting that "these statutes were not intended to apply to conduct harming an unborn child .... [because of] the existence of abortion statutes that prohibit prosecuting a mother for aborting her unborn child." Although Wisconsin's "born alive" laws still apply to others who injure the unborn, mothers in Wisconsin's 2nd District are free to treat their unborn children in any fashion without fear of conviction. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has yet to rule on the issue of whether the unborn are human beings under the state statutes, but there is an indication that the court is divided equally on the issue. Should the case make its way back to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the judges should consider more fully the argument of state prosecutors who asserted that while Roe v. Wade states that an unborn child is not considered a human being, "there is still great wisdom, logic and common sense in the pre-Roe cases regarding the legal rights of [unborn children]."

In fact, the court in this case did not need to look beyond the decision in Roe to find that the unborn child in this case could be considered a human being. In Roe, the court established a trimester framework around which states could regulate abortion. The Supreme Court in Roe found that the states could fully regulate abortion in the third trimester of pregnancy, while the ability to enact similar regulations during the first and second trimester was very limited. In addition, the post-Roe decision by the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey determined that the ability of the unborn child to live outside the womb marked the point at which the unborn are considered to be human beings for purposes of state regulation. In this case, Ms. Zimmerman's drinking occurred throughout her pregnancy, including the third trimester. Under both Roe and Casey, the Court was free to determine that Zimmerman's child was indeed a human being and deserving of the protection of the state's laws. This case highlights a greater trend in the criminal law of Wisconsin that says that mothers may murder their unborn children with impunity.