The North Dakota Supreme Court cleared the way for the state’s law prohibiting abortion in nearly all instances to take effect, overturning a lower court decision that had temporarily blocked the measure.
In a split opinion released Nov. 21, the court reversed a September 2024 decision from District Judge Bruce Romanick, who had declared the law “unconstitutionally void for vagueness” and claimed that “pregnant women in North Dakota have a fundamental right to choose abortion before viability exists.”
Three of the five justices — Daniel Crothers, Lisa Fair McEvers, and Daniel Narum — sided with Romanick, the North Dakota Monitor reported. But Chief Justice Jon Jensen and Justice Jerod Tufte found the law constitutional. North Dakota’s constitution requires at least four justices to strike down a law.
Tufte and Jensen wrote that the state constitution “does not imply a right to abortion as such, and evolving public opinion on abortion cannot create one — only a constitutional amendment can do that.”
The law, signed by then-Gov. Doug Burgum soon after the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, prohibits nearly all abortions except in cases of rape or incest within the first six weeks of pregnancy or when deemed necessary to prevent a mother’s death or serious physical injury, according to the North Dakota Monitor. Violations carry felony penalties of up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Pro-life leaders and lawmakers praised the decision as a major victory for protecting unborn children.
Republican State Sen. Janne Myrdal, who sponsored the 2023 pro-life bill, said she was “thrilled and grateful that two justices that are highly respected saw the truth of the matter,” the Associated Press reported.
North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley, a Republican, called the law “important pro-life legislation, enacted by the people’s Legislature,” according to AP News. He added that his office has a “solemn responsibility” to defend the state’s laws, “and today those laws have been upheld.”
North Dakota’s last abortion clinic relocated to Minnesota after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. AP News reports that the Nov. 21 ruling means North Dakota now joins 12 other states with strong pro-life laws banning abortion, while four others restrict abortion to around six weeks of pregnancy.
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