Judge axes North Dakota's near-total abortion ban

Abortion rights protesters in front of Supreme Court in June 2024

The victory is bittersweet: some women will now be able to get abortions in hospitals, but the closest abortion clinic is in Minnesota

(Image credit: Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images)

By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US

published 13 September 2024

What happened

A North Dakota judge overturned the state's near-total ban on abortion yesterday, ruling that the 2023 law violated several guarantees in the state constitution, including a "fundamental right to choose abortion" up to fetal viability, or about 24 weeks into pregnancy.

The abortion ban "infringes on a woman's fundamental right to procreative autonomy" and is "unconstitutionally void for vagueness," state District Judge Bruce Romanick said. It also "takes away a woman's liberty and her right to pursue and obtain safety and happiness."

The ruling was a "victory for abortion rights supporters," albeit a "bittersweet one," The Washington Post said. The state "no longer has any abortion clinic" since North Dakota's sole provider moved across the border to Minnesota after a prior ban — which Romanick also struck down — was enacted in 2022. Some women will now be able to get abortions in hospitals, but the Red River Women's Clinic said it had no plans to return to North Dakota.

North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley (R) said he would appeal the ruling. And the state's "Republican-controlled legislature can, and very likely will, try to enact another ban when it convenes again in January," The New York Times said.

Nationally, an "unprecedented number of abortion initiatives are on state ballots this November," and abortion opponents are "trying to defeat them even before the start of voting through legal challenges," administrative maneuvering and "outright intimidation," The Washington Post said. But if "courts in Nebraska and South Dakota" don't strike the measures from the ballot, "voters in 10 states from Nevada to New York will have the opportunity to enshrine a right to abortion" in their state constitutions.

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Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.