By Dave Andrusko
In a brief filed by Solicitor General Matthew Sagveen and Assistant Attorney General Courtney Titus, the state of North Dakota has asked Burleigh County District Judge Bruce Romanick to lift his stay on a trigger law banning abortion, “arguing he failed to make the state’s lone abortion clinic show a likelihood of winning its challenge of the law,” the Associated Press (AP) reported. The law prohibits abortion except in cases of rape or incest or when the life of the mother is in danger.
On August 25, Judge Romanick granted the request for a preliminary injunction as part of a lawsuit brought by the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, the state’s lone abortion clinic. Judge Romanick ruled that Attorney General Drew Wrigley was premature in setting a July 28 closing date “and issued a temporary restraining order that effectively gave the clinic time to move to Moorhead without a gap in services.”
The abortion clinic has since moved but argued that the law, if it were to go into effect, would implicate others, including physicians at regional hospitals.
The injunction blocking the abortion ban “is to remain in effect until a further court order or the end of litigation in the case, Romanick wrote in the Aug. 25 order,” Jeremy Turley reported.
“Romanick said he was not ruling on the probability of the clinic winning the lawsuit, rather that more time was needed to make a proper judgment.”
Attorney General Drew Wrigley told Forum News Service
the state is undeterred by Romanick’s order, which “temporarily pauses this abortion regulation from taking effect.”
“The merits of the law will be reviewed by the courts up ahead, and the Attorney General’s office will continue our efforts to ensure the eventual enforcement of the bi-partisan provision signed into law back in 2007,” Wrigley said in a statement.
In 2007, North Dakota “passed a bill that would outlaw abortion in the state within 30 days if the U.S. Supreme Court ever overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision,” Turley reported. “The 15-year-old legislation was triggered by the high court’s Dobbs v. Jackson ruling in June.”
