Judge strikes down North Dakota's abortion ban

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FILE-People gather to protest against Supreme Court's decision in the Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health case in 2022. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)

A judge struck down North Dakota’s ban on abortion on Thursday, saying that the state constitution creates a right to access abortion before a fetus is possible.

North Dakota District Judge Bruce Romanick concluded in his ruling that the law is too vague, and it leaves doctors open to being prosecuted because others disagree with their medical judgments, according to the Associated Press.

The AP noted that under Romanick's order, abortion would be legal in North Dakota, but the state currently has no clinics performing them, and the Republican-dominated state government would be expected to appeal the ruling.

Romanick made his ruling related to a request from the state to dismiss a 2022 lawsuit filed against the abortion ban by the state’s only abortion clinic.

The Red River Women’s Clinic filed the original lawsuit in 2022 against the state’s abortion ban, weeks after the fall of Roe v. Wade.

This abortion clinic relocated to Minnesota and North Dakota officials argued that the trial would not have an influence, resulting in the judge canceling a trial scheduled for August.

According to the AP, Romanick admitted in his ruling that in the past, the North Dakota courts relied on federal court precedents on abortion but said those state precedents had been "upended" by the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to ban abortion under the Constitution.

Last year, North Dakota’s Republican-controlled Legislature reworked the state’s abortion laws, making abortion legal in pregnancies caused by rape or incest, but only in the first six weeks of pregnancy.

The AP noted that under the revised law, abortion was allowed later in pregnancy only in specific medical emergencies.