By Dave Andrusko
State District Judge Bruce Romanick today struck down North Dakota’s strongly pro-life law, concluding in his 24 page decision that the state constitution created a fundamental right to abortion before an unborn baby is viable. The decision was not unexpected and likely will be appealed.
“Last year, the judge ruled that the State Constitution protected a fundamental right to abortion to protect a pregnant woman’s health or life, but stopped short of saying whether there was a broader right,” according to The New York Times’s Kate Zernike. “And while the judge’s order means that abortion will become legal soon, the procedure will remain unavailable because the only clinic in the state has closed, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, which brought the suit in 2022 on behalf of that clinic.”
Judge Romanick wrote
“The abortions statutes at issue in this case infringes on a woman’s fundamental right to procreative autonomy, and are not narrowly tailored to promote women’s health or to protect unborn human life,” he wrote. “The law as currently drafted takes away a woman’s liberty and her right to pursue and obtain safety and happiness.”
He later added
“Pregnant women in North Dakota have a fundamental right to choose abortion before viability exists under the enumerated and unenumerated interests provided by the North Dakota Constitution.”
Ingrid Duran, NRL’s Director of State Legislation, explained that the bill “protects unborn children throughout gestation from abortion, except to prevent the death of the mother as well as other exceptions”
Background
On April 23, 2023, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed Senate Bill 2150, a bill which sped through the House 76-14 and the Senate 42-5.
That prompted Sen. Janne Myrdal to tell reporters, “North Dakota has always been pro-life and believed in valuing the moms and children both” adding “We’re pretty happy and grateful that the governor stands with that value.”
However, The Red River Women’s Clinic [RRWC], which moved from Fargo to neighboring Moorhead, Minnesota, in 2022, sued attorney General Wrigley in July 2023 to prevent the protective law from taking effect.
In October 2023 Judge Romanick rejected a request from Attorney General Wrigley to allow the 2007 law take effect while the lawsuit went forward.
According to reporters Jack Dura and John Hanna,
The judge acknowledged in his ruling that in the past, the North Dakota courts had previously relied on federal court precedents on abortion, but said those state precedents had been “upended” by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to ban abortion under the U.S. Constitution.
Romanick said he’d been left with “relatively no idea” how the North Dakota Supreme Court would address the issue, and so his ruling was his “best effort” to “apply the law as written to the issue presented” while protecting the fundamental rights of the state’s residents.