North Dakota's Burleigh County District Court Judge Bruce Romanick ruled Monday to temporarily block the state's abortion ban from going into effect, saying a constitutional challenge has a "substantial probability" of succeeding, upholding his prior Oct. 12 ruling stopping the ban while the case is litigated.
"Whether the North Dakota Constitution conveys a fundamental right to an abortion is an issue that is very much alive and active," Romanick wrote in his ruling. "This issue does not have a clear and obvious answer. Therefore, the court finds that (the Red River Women's Clinic) has a substantial probability of succeeding on the merits through showing that there is a 'real and substantial question' before the court."
The state's only abortion provider, Red River Women's Clinic of Fargo, filed the lawsuit in early July after the United States Supreme Court reversed the 1973 Roe V. Wade decision making abortion legal throughout the nation, challenging the state law as unconstitutional, KVRR reported in July.
The Supreme Court ruled abortion is not guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution and deciding its legality should fall to the individual states.
North Dakota was one of around a dozen states with "trigger laws" that would ban or severely restrict abortion if Roe was overruled.
Its 2007 legislation bans abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother, and was expected to take effect late this year, causing the clinic to raise around $1 million in donations and move its operation to Minnesota, the Associated Press reported in August.
Romanick initially issued a stay on the law in August, but the State Supreme Court ordered Romanick to reconsider the injunction, saying he blocked the law without determining if the case against it could win on its merits, which it called "a clear error of law," North Dakota's Inforum news outlet reported Oct. 12.
North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley, a Republican supporting the ban, said he was still reviewing Monday's ruling.
"I'm unpersuaded by almost everything I read in the judge's ruling, and we look forward to responding," he told the Associated Press.
Red River Women's Clinic Director Tammi Kromenaker told the news outlet she is pleased that abortion is still legal in North Dakota.
"We want physicians who are treating patients to feel like they can use their best medical judgment and training and not be looking at the law books as to how they can take care of patients," she said in the report.
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