Judge in North Dakota Will Decide if a Case Against the State’s Abortion Ban Should Be Thrown Out

Tuesday, lawyers in North Dakota argued over whether a judge should throw out a lawsuit challenging the state’s abortion ban. The state said the plaintiffs’ case is based on hypotheticals, while the plaintiffs said important issues still needed to be resolved at a scheduled trial.

State District Judge Bruce Romanick said he would make a decision as soon as possible. However, he also asked the lawyer for the claimants what role he would play in the August court case.

The case against the state’s now-repealed trigger ban was filed by the Red River Women’s Clinic soon after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. The clinic had moved from Fargo to nearby Moorhead, Minnesota. It was the only place in North Dakota where you could get an abortion. In 2023, while the lawsuit was going on, North Dakota’s Republican-controlled Legislature changed the state’s abortion rules. Soon after, the plaintiffs made a new complaint with the help of obstetricians, gynecologists, and doctors who specialize in maternal-fetal medicine.

North Dakota makes abortion a criminal, but there are some exceptions: up to six weeks of pregnancy, if the mother is in danger of dying or is at a “serious health risk,” or if she has been raped or sexually assaulted.

The people who are suing say that the law breaks the state constitution because it is too unclear about the exceptions for doctors and the health exception is too narrow.

The state wants the lawsuit to be thrown out. Special Assistant Attorney General Dan Gaustad said that the claimants want the law to be thrown out because it is based on hypotheticals, that the clinic in Minnesota doesn’t have legal standing, and that a trial won’t help the judge.

“You won’t learn anything else.” “It’s a matter of law,” Gaustad told the judge.

The people who are suing want the trial to go ahead.

A staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights named Meetra Mehdizadeh said the trial would settle factual disputes about how the law would apply in different pregnancy complications, “how much the ban chills the provision of standard-of-care medical treatment,” and the need for exceptions for mental health and pregnancies with a fatal fetal diagnosis.

When the judge asked her about the trial, she said that hearing experts testify in person instead of reading their depositions would give him a chance to check their trustworthiness and ask his own questions to make things clearer.

In an interview, she said that rules like North Dakota’s are making things harder for doctors when patients come in for emergency care.

Mehdizadeh said, “Across the country, doctors are feeling like they have to wait—either to do more tests, talk to legal teams, or wait for patients to get sicker so they can figure out if the patient is covered by the ban.”

In January, the plaintiffs asked the judge to temporarily block part of the law so doctors could perform abortions in situations where they were medically necessary without risking being charged.

A recent report from the state of North Dakota said that the number of abortions dropped so low that they could not be reported. This means that there were less than six abortions in 2023. In 2021, the year before the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the state reported 840 abortions.

By ending the right to abortion across the country, the court’s ruling let states pass abortion bans.

Most places that are run by Republicans now have laws that ban or limit things. North Dakota is one of 14 states that don’t allow abortions at any point during a pregnancy. At the same time, most states ruled by Democrats have passed laws to protect access to abortion.

At least six states will have abortion-related ballot measures on the ballot this year, making the problem a big one. Since 2022, voters in all seven states that had similar questions have voted with people who support abortion rights.

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