North Dakota Judge Holds State Abortion Ban Is Unconstitutional
- September 13, 2024
A North Dakota judge struck down September 12 the state’s abortion ban, finding the law violated the fundamental rights set forth in the North Dakota Constitution.
District Judge Bruce Romanick said the state constitution guarantees individuals “the fundamental right to make medical judgments affecting his or her bodily integrity, health and autonomy, in consultation with a chosen health care provider free from government interference.” More specifically, Romanick wrote, the constitution “protects a woman’s right to procreative autonomy—including to seek and obtain a pre-viability abortion.”
The issue was back before Romanick after the North Dakota Supreme Court last year refused to vacate a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the state’s “trigger law,” which went into effect when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Romanick entered the preliminary injunction of that law in August 2022. In a March 2023 decision, the state high court left the law enjoined, saying “a fundamental right to an abortion in the limited instances of life-saving and health-preserving circumstances” required strict scrutiny analysis of the law. Wrigley v. Access Indep. Health Servs., Inc., No. 2023 ND 50 (N.D. Mar. 16, 2023).
While acknowledging the state’s compelling interest in protecting women’s health and protecting unborn human life, the high court found the North Dakota law was not narrowly tailored because it criminalized abortions even if they were performed to preserve the life or health of the woman.
Following that decision, the state legislature amended North Dakota’s abortion statutes, enacting new laws that provide a series of exceptions including for “[a]n abortion deemed necessary based on reasonable medical judgment which was intended to prevent the death or a serious health risk to the pregnant female.”
But Romanick found the revised law “impermissibly vague on its face,” pointing to the exception’s “dual standard of both subjective and objective elements.”
“Today’s decision gives me hope. I feel like the court heard us when we raised our voices against a law that not only ran counter to our state constitution, but was too vague for physicians to interpret and which prevented them from providing the high quality care that our communities are entitled to,” said Tammi Kromenaker, Director of Red River Women’s Clinic, a plaintiff in the case.
North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley said the state would appeal the ruling, citing “flaws” in the decision’s “analysis and interpretation of controlling precedent.”
Access Independent Health Servs., Inc. v. Wrigley, No. 08-2022-CV-01608 (N.D. Dist. Ct. Sept. 12, 2024).