BISMARCK, N.D. — A North Dakota judge on Thursday struck down the state's abortion ban, saying the state's constitution provides a fundamental right to an abortion before a fetus becomes viable.
In his ruling, state District Judge Bruce Romanick also said the law was too vague and violated the state Constitution.
Judge Romanick was ruling on the state's request to dismiss a 2022 lawsuit filed against the ban by what was then North Dakota's only abortion clinic.
The clinic has since moved across the state line to Minnesota, but the state argued a lawsuit wouldn't change the situation. A judge canceled a trial scheduled for August.
Romanick noted that the North Dakota Constitution guarantees “unalienable rights,” including “life and liberty.”
“The abortion law at issue in this case violates a woman's fundamental right of reproductive autonomy and is not strictly designed to promote women's health or protect the life of the unborn,” Judge Romanick wrote in a 24-page order. “As currently drafted, the law abrogates women's liberty and their right to pursue their safety and happiness.”
Romanick was first elected to the district judgeship in heavily Republican North Dakota in 2000 and has been re-elected every six years since, most recently in 2018.
Before becoming a judge, he served as an assistant state's attorney for Burleigh County, which includes the state capital, Bismarck.
In his ruling, the justices acknowledged that North Dakota courts have relied on federal court precedents regarding abortion in the past, but said those state precedents were “overturned” by the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, allowing states to ban abortion under the U.S. Constitution.
Romanick said the North Dakota Supreme Court had “little idea” how it would address the issue, so the ruling was its “best effort” to “apply the law as it is to the issue presented” while protecting the fundamental rights of state residents.
“Pregnant women in North Dakota have a fundamental right to choose to terminate a pregnancy before it becomes viable, based on the enumerated and unenumerated rights set forth in the North Dakota Constitution,” the judge wrote.
Governor Romanick's order is similar in many ways to a 2019 order by the Kansas Supreme Court, declaring the right to abortion a fundamental right under a similar provision in the state's constitution. However, the Kansas Supreme Court did not limit its ruling to before a fetus is viable. Kansas voters confirmed this position in a statewide ballot initiative in August 2022.
Romanick concluded that the law is too vague because it lacks clear standards for determining whether an exception applies, leaving doctors open to prosecution for disagreeing with others' decisions.
Red River Women's Clinic, North Dakota's only abortion provider, filed the first lawsuit of 2022 challenging the state's now-repealed trigger ban, weeks after Roe v. Wade expired.
Subsequent clinic Moved From Fargo to neighboring Moorhead, Minnesota.
In 2023, the Republican-controlled North Dakota Legislature amended the state's abortion law to make abortion legal within six weeks of pregnancy in cases where the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest.
The revised law now allows abortions later in pregnancy only in certain medical emergencies.
Soon after, the clinic filed an amended complaint along with several obstetrics, gynecology and maternal-fetal medicine physicians.
The plaintiffs argued that the abortion ban violated the state constitution because the physician exception was unconstitutionally vague and the health exception was too narrow.
