North Dakota Abortion Law Faces Legal Challenge

Physicians request temporary block on law restricting abortions, citing vagueness and potential health risks.

Physicians and the formerly sole abortion provider in North Dakota have asked a state district court judge to temporarily block a part of the state’s revised abortion laws that restrict doctors.
The law currently outlaws all abortions except in cases where the mother could face death or a 'serious health risk.'
The revised laws provide exceptions to the ban, allowing abortion for pregnancies caused by rape and incest but only within the first six weeks. It also allows for the treatment of ectopic and molar pregnancies.
Physicians have perceived the law’s language for 'serious health risk' to be 'so vague' that they 'don’t know at what point a condition rises to the level of being what the statute calls a ‘serious health risk.’'
The Red River Women’s Clinic sued the state last year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned the court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling establishing a nationwide right to abortion.