Roe V Wade: What Happens In MN If Ruling Is Overturned

MINNESOTA — A furious battle is shaping up in the United States Senate over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh will likely be questioned about his position on Roe v Wade and whether he would support overturning the landmark ruling that made abortion legal in the United States.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said there’s every reason to believe Kavanaugh would overturn Roe.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump said he will only appoint pro-life judges to the bench.

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If the ruling were to be overturned, abortion regulations would vary by state. As it currently stands, not much would change in Minnesota due to a 1995 state Supreme Court ruling.

The court ruling in Jane Doe vs. the state of Minnesota — which dealt with government benefits — not only protected legal access to abortion, but also required the state to pay for abortions for certain low-income women.

"The discriminatory distribution of the benefits of governmental largesse can discourage the exercise of fundamental liberties just as effectively as can an outright denial of those rights through criminal and regulatory sanctions," the court said.

Current abortion restrictions in Minnesota

In Minnesota, a woman "must receive state-directed counseling that includes information designed to discourage her from having an abortion, and then wait 24 hours before the procedure is provided," reports the Guttmacher Institute.

Additionally, parents of a minor must be notified before an abortion takes place.

In 2014, approximately 9,760 abortions occurred in Minnesota. The state saw a 13 percent decline in the abortion rate from 2011 to 2014 (from 10.7 to 9.3 abortions per 1,000 women of age), according to the Guttmacher Institute.

According to Axios, 17 states have either laws or court rulings that protect access to abortion regardless of Roe, four states have laws that would immediately make abortion illegal if Roe is overturned and seven states have pre-Roe abortion restrictions. The remaining 22 states and Washington D.C. have no clear regulations in place.

A recent poll from NBC and The Wall Street Journal found that 88 percent of Democrats, 76 percent of independent and 52 percent of Republicans support Roe v. Wade.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he expects confirmation hearings for Kavanaugh to begin in late August or early September and for Kavanaugh to be confirmed by Oct. 1.

Abortion isn’t the only issue that has Republicans and Democrats sparring over Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Democrats are demanding access to paperwork from Kavanaugh's tenure as staff secretary in Bush's White House, on the 2000 election presidential recount and on special counsel Kenneth Starr's probe of President Bill Clinton. The tally could stretch at least 1 million pages. Democratic lawmakers are pushing for more information before meeting one-on-one with Kavanaugh.

And with a thin majority in the Senate and the absence of John McCain, Republicans can’t afford to lose even a single member of the caucus if all Democrats vote against him. The votes of Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, both pro-choice Republicans, will be closely watched as the two senators, along with McCain, cast the nay votes that prevented the repeal of Obamacare.

More in Minnesota politics:

• Double Murderer Running For US Senate In Minnesota
• Minnesota Primary Election 2018: Candidates, Ballot, More
• Trump Tweets After Water Thrown On Tomi Lahren In Minneapolis

Reporting from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Photo: Pro-choice and pro-life activists demonstrate on the steps of the United States Supreme Court on June 27, 2016 in Washington, DC. In a 5-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down one of the nation's toughest restrictions on abortion, a Texas law that women's groups said would have forced more than three-quarters of the state's clinics to close. (Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty Images)