A state judge struck down North Dakota's near-total ban on abortion Thursday, saying that the state constitution creates a fundamental right to access abortion before a fetus is viable. In his ruling, state District Judge Bruce Romanick also said that the law violates the state constitution because it is too vague in how it specifies exemptions, per the New York Times. Under the judge's order, abortion would be legal in North Dakota, but the state currently has no clinics performing them, and the Republican-dominated state government would be expected to appeal the ruling, the AP reports.
The state's only abortion provider had been the Red River Women's Clinic in Fargo, but it moved a few miles to Moorehead, Minnesota, in 2022, after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed states to ban abortion. Director Tammi Kromenaker said Thursday's decision "gives us hope," though there are no plans to reopen a clinic in North Dakota. "We feel like the court heard our concerns and the physicians in North Dakota's concerns about a law that we felt went too far," she said.
Romanick was ruling on the state's request to dismiss a 2022 lawsuit filed by the Red River clinic. After the clinic's move, the state argued that a trial wouldn't make a difference, per the AP. The judge had canceled a trial set for August. But Romanick pointed out that North Dakota Constitution's guarantees "inalienable rights," including "life and liberty." In his 24-page order, he wrote: "The abortions statutes at issue in this case infringe on a woman's fundamental right to procreative autonomy, and are not narrowly tailored to promote women's health or to protect unborn human life. The law as currently drafted takes away a woman's liberty and her right to pursue and obtain safety and happiness." (More abortion ban stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
