A North Dakota judge overturned the state’s near-total abortion ban on Thursday, saying that the State Constitution protected a woman’s right to abortion until the fetus was viable.
“The North Dakota Constitution guarantees each individual, including women, the fundamental right to make medical judgments affecting his or her bodily integrity, health and autonomy, in consultation with a chosen health care provider free from government interference,” wrote Judge Bruce Romanick of the district court in Burleigh County.
The judge, who was elected to his position, also ruled that the law violated the State Constitution’s due process protections because it was too vague in how it defined exceptions to the ban.
The decision is almost certain to be appealed. And while the judge’s order means that abortion will become legal soon, the procedure will remain unavailable because the only clinic in the state has closed, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, which brought the suit in 2022 on behalf of that clinic.
It is the second time in two years that Judge Romanick has overturned the state’s ban on abortion, which the legislature passed as a trigger ban to take effect if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which it did in 2022. Last year, the judge ruled that the State Constitution protected a fundamental right to abortion to protect a pregnant woman’s health or life, but stopped short of saying whether there was a broader right.
The legislature then repealed the previous ban and enacted an almost identical law that included some exceptions, to “prevent the death or health risk to the pregnant female” or before six weeks of pregnancy, if that pregnancy resulted from incest or “gross sexual imposition.”
A spokeswoman for Attorney General Drew Wrigley, a Republican who was named as the lead defendant in the case, said that he planned to issue a statement on the opinion later Thursday.
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