State Mandated Abortion Law Training Now Available For North Dakota Doctors

(Photo courtesy of University of North Dakota via the North Dakota Monitor)

(North Dakota Monitor) – A new training commissioned by the North Dakota Legislature to address confusion about the state’s abortion laws is now available on the North Dakota Board of Medicine’s website.

The course covers North Dakota statutes including the state’s near-total abortion ban, a law criminalizing partial-birth abortions and the Abortion Control Act, which establishes other abortion-related restrictions. The training also tests respondents’ knowledge with a series of clinical vignettes that apply the laws in real-world scenarios. Upon completing the course, doctors get a digital certificate.

Lawmakers in 2025 ordered the training through House Bill 1511, which included an appropriation of $50,000.

At the time, the state faced a lawsuit over its abortion ban, which makes it a crime for doctors to perform abortions except in cases of rape and incest when the pregnancy is less than six weeks old, or when the pregnancy poses a serious physical health threat to the life of the mother. The plaintiffs — which included reproductive health care doctors and an abortion clinic — alleged the law, among other things, was too vague for doctors to understand.