North Dakota Abortion Ban Deemed constitutional in Split Opinion From State Supreme Court

(Pool photo by Tanner Ecker/Bismarck Tribune via the North Dakota Monitor)

(North Dakota Monitor) – North Dakota’s abortion ban survived a court challenge after the state Supreme Court failed to meet the supermajority required to overturn the law.

The decision reverses a lower court’s ruling from last fall that struck down the law as unconstitutionally vague and found that women have a right to seek abortions until the point of fetal viability.

Three of the five justices found the law unconstitutional: Daniel Crothers, Lisa Fair McEvers and Daniel Narum, a district court judge who sat on the case in place of Douglas Bahr, who recused. Chief Justice Jon Jensen and Justice Jerod Tufte found the law constitutional. A vote of at least four justices is needed to find a law unconstitutional.

The ruling follows more than two years of litigation over the statute, which was signed by former Gov. Doug Burgum in April 2023 just weeks after the Supreme Court struck down a previous abortion ban.