BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Abortion is again illegal in North Dakota after the state’s Supreme Court on Friday couldn’t come up the required majority to uphold a judge’s ruling that struck down the state’s ban last year.
Three justices agreed that the ban is unconstitutionally vague under the state constitution. The other two justices said the law is not unconstitutional.
The state constitution requires at least four of the five justices to agree for a law to be found unconstitutional, a high bar. Not enough members of the court joined together to affirm the lower court ruling.
“The effect of the separate opinions in this case is that (the law) is not declared unconstitutional by a sufficient majority and that the district court judgment declaring (the law) unconstitutional and void is reversed,” the opinion states.
The ruling means access to abortion in North Dakota will be outlawed. Even after a judge had earlier struck down the ban last year, the only scenarios for a patient to obtain an abortion in North Dakota had been for life- or health-preserving reasons in a hospital.
The only abortion provider relocated in 2022 from Fargo to Moorhead.
North Dakota’s newly confirmed ban prohibits the performance of an abortion as a felony crime. The only exceptions are for rape or incest in the first six weeks — before many women know they are pregnant — and to prevent the mother’s death or a “serious health risk” to her.
Judge Bruce Romanick struck down the ban the Legislature passed in 2023, less than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion.
The Red River Women’s Clinic — the formerly sole abortion clinic in North Dakota — and several physicians challenged the law. The state appealed the 2024 ruling that overturned the ban.
The judge and the Supreme Court each denied requests by the state to keep the abortion ban in effect during the appeal. Those decisions allowed patients with pregnancy complications to seek care without fear of delay because of the law, Center for Reproductive Rights Staff Attorney Meetra Mehdizadeh previously said.
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