North Dakota governor signs near-total abortion ban into law

Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota has signed into law a near-total ban on abortion, becoming the latest Republican governor to adopt stringent antiabortion measures after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

The law enacted Monday, one of the strictest in the country, will permit abortions in cases of rape and incest but only in the first six weeks of pregnancy. The law also makes an exception in the case of a “serious” physical health risk or to prevent death of the patient.

Many health experts argue that six weeks is too early for most women to know they are pregnant, much less decide whether to seek an abortion. In a statement, Burgum said the legislation “clarifies and refines existing state law” to reaffirm North Dakota as a “pro-life state,” the Associated Press reported.

The bill passed 42-5 in the state Senate last week. Testifying ahead of the vote in the state Senate, Katie Christensen, Planned Parenthood’s North Dakota representative, opposed the bill, arguing that it would limit patients’ access to reproductive health care.

“States with strong access to abortion have lower maternal mortality rates, lower infant death rates, improved prenatal care access, and higher contraception uptake,” she said in her testimony, adding that her organization’s Moorhead clinic in neighboring Minnesota receives 60% of its patients from North Dakota.

In another testimony, an obstetrician in favor of the bill argued that placing a six-week limit on abortions in instances of rape and incest makes it impossible to access the procedure, because individuals might only recognize their pregnancy at a later gestational age and sexual assault survivors might not get medical care in time.

Last month, the state’s Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s order blocking an earlier abortion ban as it hears a challenge to its constitutionality.

The ruling in March stemmed from a case filed by abortion providers last year through the Center for Reproductive Rights, an abortion rights group. It argued that the state’s constitution guarantees the right to life and liberty, which should protect abortion rights.

In 2007, the state’s legislature passed a “trigger” law that would prohibit most abortion services in the state after 30 days if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe. In a statement last year, Burgum hailed the court’s decision to remove the constitutional protection for abortion, saying that it “returns power to the states, where it belongs,” and that North Dakota would move to “protect the unborn.”

North Dakota does not have any abortion clinics. The last one moved to Minnesota in August.

Six months after Roe, a dozen states brought in near-total bans on abortion, though some of them were under challenge in courts, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion legislation.