Wrigley laments North Dakota Supreme Court abortion ruling
(The Center Square) – North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley said he disagreed with a Thursday decision by the North Dakota Supreme Court that upheld an injunction on the state’s abortion trigger laws.
North Dakota lawmakers passed a trigger law in 2007 to make abortion illegal if the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe V. Wade. The state’s only abortion provider, Red River Women’s Clinic, sued to ban the law. A district court issued an injunction stopping the trigger law.
The state Supreme Court sided with the clinic in its ruling.
“In sum, the history and traditions of North Dakota support the conclusion that there is a fundamental right to receive an abortion to preserve the life or the health of the mother,” the ruling said. “The district court did not abuse its discretion in determining RRWC would suffer a greater irreparable injury than the State.”
State laws have always allowed abortion to protect the mother’s life, Wrigley said in a statement.
“Nevertheless, the North Dakota Supreme Court today chooses a path of its very own, by holding there is now also an un-defined ‘health’ exception to abortion regulation,” Wrigley said. “Our Supreme Court did this without explicit support from our state Constitution, and without support from legislative enactments in our history of abortion regulation. In so doing, North Dakota’s Supreme Court appears to have taken on the role of a legislative body, a role our constitution does not afford them.”
The ruling does not stop lawmakers from passing abortion laws, according to the attorney general.
“Thankfully, our legislature has spent the past two months working on legislation that recrafts North Dakota’s abortion laws, and they will now have the opportunity to enact the will of North Dakotans, aware of the latest North Dakota Supreme Court pronouncement,” Wrigley said.
The Center for Reproductive Rights praised the ruling.
“[Americans] have made clear that they want this right protected yet state officials continue to ignore the will of their citizens,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the organization. “We will continue to work tirelessly to protect North Dakotans and the fundamental human rights of all people.”
