Abortion is once again illegal in North Dakota after the state’s Supreme Court failed on Friday to reach the four-justice majority required to strike down the state’s abortion ban, allowing the law to take effect immediately.
According to The Associated Press, three of the five justices agreed that the ban is unconstitutionally vague under the state constitution.
The remaining two justices said the law is constitutional. But because the state constitution requires at least four justices to invalidate a statute, the lower court ruling overturning the ban could not stand.
The decision reinstates one of the strictest abortion bans in the country. Even before Friday’s ruling, access had already been severely constrained: abortions were allowed only in hospitals and only for life-or health-preserving reasons after a district court blocked the broader ban last year.
The state’s only abortion provider left North Dakota in 2022, relocating from Fargo to Moorhead, Minnesota.
Republican state Sen. Janne Myrdal, who sponsored the 2023 legislation that created the ban, welcomed the ruling.
She said she is “thrilled and grateful that two justices that are highly respected saw the truth of the matter, that this is fully constitutional for the mother and for the unborn child and thereafter for that sake.”
The law prohibits performing an abortion as a felony offense, with limited exceptions. Those include cases of rape or incest within the first six weeks of pregnancy — a window many women do not know they are pregnant — and when necessary to prevent the death of the mother or address a “serious health risk.”
Justice Daniel Crothers, one of the three justices who rejected the ban, wrote that the district court’s decision should not have been overturned.
“The vagueness in the law relates to when an abortion can be performed to preserve the life and health of the mother,” Crothers wrote. “After striking this invalid provision, the remaining portions of the law would be inoperable.”
Judge Bruce Romanick had struck down the ban last year, finding it violated the state constitution less than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and shifted abortion policy battles to the states. The Red River Women’s Clinic and several physicians challenged the ban, arguing it endangered patients and left doctors uncertain about when care was legally permitted.
The state appealed, but both the district court and the Supreme Court declined requests to keep the ban in effect during the appeal process. The Center for Reproductive Rights said those rulings ensured patients suffering medical complications could seek timely treatment without waiting for lawyers or judges to determine whether their care qualified as legal.
With Friday’s decision, North Dakota joins 12 other states that enforce bans on abortion throughout pregnancy. Four additional states prohibit the procedure around six weeks of gestation.
For now, abortion care remains unavailable in the state, apart from narrow exceptions. The Supreme Court has not indicated whether it will reconsider the law if future challenges arise.
