A federal appeals court has struck down North Dakota’s ban on abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, invalidating one of the strictest abortion restrictions in the country and allowing the state’s sole abortion clinic to remain open.
The state enacted the law in 2013 aiming to ban abortions at the point in the pregnancy when the unborn child possesses a heartbeat, according to the ruling.
The 8th Circuit also cited the Supreme Court’s definition of viability as the point at which the fetus has a reasonable chance for sustained life outside the womb, which those challenging the law maintained is at about 24 weeks. The state could appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
The ruling said states “might find their interest in protecting unborn children better served by a more consistent and certain marker than viability”.
More than 60 North Dakota lawmakers signed a letter sent to Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem urging him to appeal Hovland’s ruling, in which the judge noted the Supreme Court had already ruled on the issue of viability.
Dalrymple has called the law “a legitimate attempt by a state Legislature to discover the boundaries of Roe v. Wade“.
“This continues the trend of rejection of political attempts to infringe on women’s reproductive rights”, she said.
Dalrymple was traveling to a National Governors Association meeting in West Virginia and was not immediately available for comment, spokesman Jeff Zent said.
Nancy Northrup, president and CEO of the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, was full of praise.
North Dakota lawmakers set aside $400,000 to defend lawsuits arising from the new abortion laws in 2013, and the Legislature added another $400,000 this year. Records obtained by The Associated Press show that the state has spent $312,861 defending the abortion laws as of June, including almost $233,000 on the fetal heartbeat measure. The nearest abortion clinics are four hours south in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and four hours southeast in Minneapolis.
A legal promoter of this very North Dakota jurisprudence said that in fact 40 numerous health improvements is not recommended to be ignored, despite the fact that foes said a ban at two months would probably act before many ladies knows they had been gets pregnant. But the 8th Circuit said that standard is arbitrary, unworkable and unfair to states that oppose abortion rights.
