North Dakota lost its only abortion clinic because of a strict law. Now the situation in the US state is easing. Lawyers are celebrating a victory.
A judge in North Dakota has overturned the conservative-governed US state’s strict abortion law, which prohibits almost all abortions. The law is “confusing and vague” and violates the constitution, Judge Bruce Romanick explained the decision on Thursday.
“As written, it has the potential to severely limit doctors’ willingness to perform abortions – even though the North Dakota Supreme Court has already found that there is a fundamental right to an abortion to protect a woman’s life or health,” Romanick said.
The northern state’s Republican governor, Doug Burgum, passed the law in April 2023. It bans abortions under threat of five years in prison for doctors with a few exceptions, such as when the mother’s health is threatened or in cases of rape or incest. In the latter two cases, however, abortion is also prohibited from the sixth week of pregnancy.
US states decide for themselves on abortion law
North Dakota, with its population of around 800,000, is one of around 20 US states that have banned or severely restricted abortion after the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in June 2022, which guaranteed women in the US the right to abortion for almost 50 years. Since then, responsibility for abortion law has been with the individual states.
Meetra Mehdizadeh, a lawyer at the Center for Reproductive Rights, welcomed the ruling in North Dakota as “a victory for reproductive rights.” At the same time, she criticized that the damage caused by the ban could not be “repaired overnight.”
There are hardly any doctors offering abortions left in North Dakota – the last abortion clinic has moved to the neighboring state of Minnesota.
Source: Stern
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