North Dakota abortion ban struck down by judge – Washington Examiner
A North Dakota state judge has ruled against the state’s abortion ban, declaring it unconstitutional. District Judge Bruce Romanick stated that the North Dakota constitution guarantees a fundamental right to access abortion before a fetus reaches viability. The judge also criticized the law for its vagueness.
This ruling follows significant changes in the abortion legal landscape in North Dakota after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in *Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization*, which allowed states to set their own abortion laws. Previously, a trigger law designed to ban abortion outright was blocked by a court and remained under injunction due to ongoing lawsuits.
The recent ruling addresses a new law passed by the state legislature, which prohibited abortions with limited exceptions for medical emergencies or cases of rape and incest, but only within the first six weeks of pregnancy. Judge Romanick found this law to be unlawful, emphasizing that it failed to provide clear guidance and infringed upon the constitutional rights outlined in North Dakota’s state constitution.
North Dakota abortion ban struck down by judge
A judge in North Dakota struck down the state’s abortion law, ruling it unconstitutional due to “vagueness” and the “fundamental right to choose abortion before viability” in the state constitution.
The Thursday ruling is the latest turn in North Dakota’s abortion law since the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization returned abortion law to the states. The trigger law that would have banned abortion in the state was blocked by a court in 2022, pending a lawsuit, and the injunction was upheld in 2023.
While the trigger law was blocked, the state legislature passed a different abortion law, banning the practice with exceptions for medical emergencies along with rape or incest in the first six weeks. State District Judge Bruce Romanick ruled on Thursday the new law was unlawful.
Romanick wrote in his order that the law is “unconstitutionally void for vagueness,” claiming it infringes on “fundamental rights.”
“Pregnant women in North Dakota have a fundamental right to choose abortion before viability exists under the enumerated and unenumerated interests provided by the North Dakota Constitution for all North Dakota individuals, including women — specifically, but not necessarily limited to, the interests in life, liberty, safety, and happiness,” Romanick wrote in the order.
The challenge was brought by Red River Women’s Clinic, which was North Dakota’s lone abortion center before it relocated to Moorhead, Minnesota. The director of the abortion provider, Tammi Kromenaker, said she is looking forward to a “new future” with abortion law in the state.
“Today’s decision gives me hope. I feel like the court heard us when we raised our voices against a law that not only ran counter to our state constitution, but was too vague for physicians to interpret and which prevented them from providing the high quality care that our communities are entitled to,” Kromenaker said in a statement Thursday.
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