A liberal judge in North Dakota struck down the state’s broad pro-life protections on Thursday, saying that they were unconstitutional and violated a woman’s “fundamental rights.”
South Central Judicial District Judge Bruce Romanick ruled that the law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy violated the state constitution’s guarantees for individuals to make their own medical decisions. Republican Attorney General Drew Wrigley disagreed with the decision, saying the state would appeal.
“[T]he North Dakota Constitution guarantees each individual, including women, the fundamental right to make medical judgments affecting his or her bodily integrity, health and autonomy, in consultation with a chosen health care provider free from government interference,” Romanick wrote.
The judge, who is not running for re-election this year, said, “Unborn human life, pre-viability, is not a sufficient justification to interfere with a woman’s fundamental rights.”
“Although not stated explicitly, implicit in the right to personal autonomy- liberty- and implicit in the right to happiness, is a woman’s right and responsibility to decide what her pregnancy demands of her in the context of her life and in the context of her health,” he wrote. “Prior to viability, a woman must retain the ultimate control over her own destiny, her own body, and ultimately the path of her life.”
Romanick also criticized the North Dakota Constitution for being written by men, who he said “did not view women as equal citizens with equal liberty interests.”
He added that “the sentiments of the past, alone, need not rule the present for all time.”
In response to the decision, Wrigley said the “opinion inappropriately casts aside the law crafted by the legislative branch of our government and ignores the applicable and controlling case law previously announced by the North Dakota Supreme Court.”
North Dakota’s abortion law was signed by Republican Governor Doug Burgum in April 2023, who said at the time that it “reaffirms North Dakota as a pro-life state.”
The law largely banned abortions, but allowed them in circumstances of rape or incest before six weeks into a pregnancy. It was passed in response to a ruling from the state Supreme Court that blocked its heartbeat law, saying that the state constitution required exceptions.
In the aftermath of the overturn of Roe v. Wade, leftists have made consistent efforts to challenge state laws governing abortion at the judicial level and by pushing pro-abortion ballot initiatives.
