A judge in North Dakota has temporarily halted the state’s “trigger law” abortion ban from beginning on July 28, allowing the only remaining abortion clinic in the state to continue the procedure.
Burleigh County District Judge Bruce Romanick granted the order to the Red River Women’s Clinic on July 27, one day before the state’s near complete ban on abortion was to take effect.
In 2007, North Dakota lawmakers approved a trigger law that, if the U.S. Supreme Court were to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, would restore the state’s authority to prohibit abortion. The trigger law—which bans abortion except in the case of incest, rape, or the health of the mother—was supposed to take effect on the 30th day after the state attorney general certified that the official judgment had been issued by the Supreme Court….