A North Dakota state court temporarily blocked the state’s trigger law banning abortion the day before it was slated to go into effect.
Burleigh County District Judge Bruce Romanick ruled Wednesday in favor of the state’s only abortion clinic, Red River Women’s Clinic, which argued that the state’s near-total abortion ban violated the North Dakota Constitution.
The judge’s decision came down one day before the law was scheduled to take effect and a day after the Supreme Court issued its certified judgment in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the June 24 ruling allowing states to impose laws severely limiting or restricting abortion access by overturning the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade.
The Fargo-based clinic claimed that state Attorney General Drew Wrigley (R) “prematurely attempted to execute” the trigger language when he set July 28 as the day it would begin, arguing that his action was improper until the high court issued its certified judgment on the decision Tuesday.
JUDGE BLOCKS WYOMING ABORTION BAN ON DAY IT TOOK EFFECT
The judge’s ruling allows the clinic additional time to relocate just a few miles toward Moorhead, Minnesota, where abortion access remains legal. The clinic’s owner, Tammi Kromenaker, said she will move to the state if the legal fight does not successfully block the North Dakota law.
Meetra Mehdizadeh, staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said she is “relieved that a North Dakota state court has blocked its devastating trigger ban for now.”
“If allowed to go into effect, this near-total abortion ban would close the state’s sole abortion clinic, leaving North Dakotans with no clinic within the state to turn for essential healthcare,” Mehdizadeh added.
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Abortion procedures are likely to remain legal in Minnesota in a post-Roe world due to the state Supreme Court’s decision in Doe v. Gomez, which determined that the state constitution protects a woman’s right to an abortion.
Positioned between several states expected to restrict abortion, Minnesota could see a 25% uptick in abortion procedures, according to Sarah Traxler, the chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States.
