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North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum speaks on the state Capitol earlier this month in Bismarck, N.D. Burgum signed an abortion ban at six weeks of being pregnant — even in instances of rape or incest — into regulation on Monday.
Mike McCleary/The Bismarck Tribune through AP
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Mike McCleary/The Bismarck Tribune through AP
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum speaks on the state Capitol earlier this month in Bismarck, N.D. Burgum signed an abortion ban at six weeks of being pregnant — even in instances of rape or incest — into regulation on Monday.
Mike McCleary/The Bismarck Tribune through AP
North Dakota on Monday adopted one of many strictest anti-abortion legal guidelines within the nation as Republican Gov. Doug Burgum signed laws banning the process all through being pregnant, with slim exceptions as much as six weeks’ gestation.
In these early weeks, abortion could be allowed solely in instances of rape, incest or medical emergency, corresponding to ectopic being pregnant.
“This invoice clarifies and refines current state regulation … and reaffirms North Dakota as a pro-life state,” Burgum stated in a press release.
Final 12 months’s U.S. Supreme Courtroom ruling overturning the 1973 Roe vs. Wade choice that legalized abortion nationwide has triggered a number of state legal guidelines banning or limiting the process. Many have been met with authorized challenges. At present, bans on abortion in any respect phases of being pregnant are in place in a minimum of 13 states and on maintain in others due to court docket injunctions. On the opposite facet, Democratic governors in a minimum of 20 states this 12 months launched a community meant to strengthen abortion entry within the wake of the U.S. Supreme Courtroom choice that eradicated ladies’s constitutional proper to finish a being pregnant and shifted regulatory powers over the process to state governments.
The North Dakota regulation is designed to take impact instantly, however final month the state Supreme Courtroom dominated a earlier ban is to stay blocked whereas a lawsuit over its constitutionality proceeds. Final week, lawmakers stated they meant to move the most recent invoice as a message to the state’s excessive court docket signaling that the folks of North Dakota need to limit abortion.
Supporters have stated the measure signed Monday protects all human life, whereas opponents contend it can have dire penalties for ladies and women.
North Dakota not has any abortion clinics. Final summer time, the state’s solely facility, the Pink River Ladies’s Clinic, shut its doorways in Fargo and moved operations a brief distance throughout the border to Moorhead, Minnesota, the place abortion stays authorized. The clinic’s proprietor continues to be pursuing a lawsuit difficult the constitutionality of North Dakota’s earlier abortion ban.
It is anticipated that this new ban may even be the topic of authorized challenges.
Republican Sen. Janne Myrdal, of Edinburg, sponsored the most recent state laws.
“North Dakota has all the time been pro-life and believed in valuing the mothers and youngsters each,” Myrdal stated in an interview. “We’re fairly comfortable and grateful that the governor stands with that worth.”
Democratic Rep. Liz Conmy voted in opposition to the invoice and stated she had hoped Burgum wouldn’t signal it.
“I do not assume ladies in North Dakota are going to simply accept this, and there shall be motion sooner or later to get our rights again,” Conmy stated. “Our Legislature is overwhelmingly pro-pregnancy, however I believe ladies within the state want to make their very own selections.”
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