Issued by a federal district court, Wednesday’s order permanently blocks the law, which would have banned abortions as early as six weeks of pregnancy.
The settlement will keep open the state’s only abortion clinic but won’t prevent future challenges to the law.
RH Reality Check spoke with reproductive health-care professionals, including abortion providers, about their concerns regarding the vague language in the bill and how it could affect access to reproductive health care in the state.
Anti-choice lawmakers and activists believe the drop is due to more women becoming educated about abortion and choosing to carry pregnancies to term, while reproductive rights advocates offer a different take: Harsh restrictions on access to abortion and reproductive health care have led to the decline.
Saying a North Dakota law that bans abortions based on gender or fetal anomaly doesn’t apply to them, the Red River Women’s Clinic asked a federal court to dismiss its legal challenge to the law.
Angry that he was unable to gather enough signatures in time, the sponsor of an amendment to put anti-choice bills up for a vote blames the only abortion provider in the state for the effort’s failure.
Reproductive rights activists filed a lawsuit Wednesday to try and keep the state’s only abortion clinic open.
A look at the past shows that whatever avenue is taken, the fight for abortion rights in North Dakota will be long and expensive.
As news spreads that the most devastating abortion laws in the nation were signed in North Dakota, the state’s only abortion clinic is getting financial support, while the governor is receiving spiritual “attaboys.”
If the state’s one abortion clinic can’t continue to operate, it doesn’t matter if abortion is banned at 20 weeks, at six weeks, or at the moment of conception. The TRAP law will mean the end of abortion access in North Dakota.
