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

WISCONSIN — A furious battle is shaping up in the United States Senate over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh will be questioned about his position on Roe v Wade and whether he would support overturning the landmark ruling that legalized abortion 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, and President Donald Trump has said in the past that he will only appoint pro-life judges to the bench, giving pro-choice Americans every right to worry.

If the ruling were to be overturned, abortion regulations would vary by state.

Information analyzed by Axios shows that Wisconsin would automatically revert to an abortion ban that was in place before Roe v Wade was enacted in 1973.

Here is the text of Wisconsin's pre-Roe v. Wade abortion laws, which are still on the books:

940.04 Abortion.

(1) Any person, other than the mother, who intentionally destroys the life of an unborn child is guilty of a Class H felony.
(2) Any person, other than the mother, who does either of the following is guilty of a Class E felony:
(a) Intentionally destroys the life of an unborn quick child; or
(b) Causes the death of the mother by an act done with intent to destroy the life of an unborn child. It is unnecessary to prove that the fetus was alive when the act so causing the mother's death was committed.
(5) This section does not apply to a therapeutic abortion which:
(a) Is performed by a physician; and
(b) Is necessary, or is advised by 2 other physicians as necessary, to save the life of the mother; and
(c) Unless an emergency prevents, is performed in a licensed maternity hospital.
(6) In this section “unborn child" means a human being from the time of conception until it is born alive.
History: 2001 a. 109; 2011 a. 217.

Candidate Would Pardon

Kelda Roys, a Democratic candidate for Governor says that if she were elected governor, she would make it a priority to repeal Wisconsin's abortion ban, according to a Cap Times report.

If Roe v. Wade was overturned at the federal level and preexisting laws were reestablished with regards to abortion in Wisconsin, Roys says she would pardon any physician who was charged with violating the abortion ban.

"The idea is that no one would ever serve a day in jail, no one would ever have a record, nobody would be convicted. I don’t know that that’s enough to have people feel comfortable continuing to provide abortion services, I mean, you’re still asking physicians to take a big, big risk," Roys said in the Cap Times article. "But it’s certainly better than somebody who doesn’t have a track record on this issue saying, 'Yeah, we’ll help you.'"

Some States Would Protect Abortions

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 new poll from NBC and The Wall Street Journal shows that support for Roe v Wade has hit an all-time high. According to the poll, 88 percent of Democrats, 76 percent of independent and 52 percent of Republicans support the ruling.

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.

Reporting from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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Image: Pro-life activists try to block the signs of pro-choice activists in front of the the U.S. Supreme Court during the 2018 March for Life January 19, 2018 in Washington, DC. Activists gathered in the nation's capital for the annual event to mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion in 1973. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)