North Dakota judge strikes down the state’s abortion ban

By Jack Dura and John Hanna - Posted at Baptist Press:

Published September 12, 2024

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – A state judge struck down North Dakota’s ban on abortion Thursday (Sept. 12), 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.

Under the judge’s order, abortion would be legal in North Dakota, but the state currently has no clinics performing them, and GOP state Attorney General Drew Wrigley promised to appeal the decision.

The state’s only abortion provider had been the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, but it moved a few miles to Moorhead, Minnesota, in 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed states to ban abortion. Director Tammi Kromenaker said there are no plans to reopen a clinic in North Dakota but Thursday’s decision “gives us hope.”

Continue here.