Bridget Turbide of North Dakota Right to Life says pro-lifers working with the attorney general's office are planning to appeal a state judge's ruling last week that struck the ban.
“That will probably get ruled on in the middle of session and depending on how the (state) Supreme Court rules will depend on what bills might or might not ensue from that Supreme Court ruling,” she says.
In his decision last Thursday, state District Judge Bruce Romanick said that the law violates the state constitution because it is too vague.
"We've had abortion illegal since Roe v. Wade was overturned, and we had one abortion clinic in the state prior to that. So, when it was overturned, they moved across the border into Minnesota and they were suing the state based on the right that a woman had a right to abortion for mental health reasons."
Romanick also ruled that broad guarantees of personal liberty in the state constitution create a fundamental right to abortion before a fetus is viable, The Associated Press reported.
Turbide views the ruling as a complete overstep of the judge's authority, a judge that Turbide calls pro-choice.
"He is retiring in November which is why people think that he acted this way,” she says.
Ruling flawed in many ways
Turbide says Romanick’s ruling was wrong on multiple fronts.
"The judge's methodology completely was unfair. He bypassed the standard legal process, and just disregarded the will of the people in North Dakota and the laws that we have passed, and this is the most radical change to our abortion law in the past 50 years, more radical than when Roe V wade was in effect, and so he was acting as a policymaker not a judge and he wasn't doing his due diligence or promoting the will of the people in North Dakota."
