On Monday, the Supreme Court decided that it did not want to review a decision by a lower court holding that a proposed North Dakota legislation banning abortion was not constitutional and could not be implemented. This brought an end to the two-year litigation that has been ongoing in this case ever since an abortion clinic in Fargo, N.D., challenged the law that was passed in 2013 before it could become effective.
North Dakota's legislature first passed the legislation banning abortion at six weeks of fetal development in 2013. Had the law been implemented immediately, it would have seriously impacted the operations of the only abortion clinic in that state. That clinic, Red River Women's Clinic in Fargo, challenged this law before it could be fully implemented.
Governor Jack Dalrymple of the Republican party said that the North Dakota legislation was "a legitimate attempt by a state legislature to discover the boundaries of Roe v. Wade," according to Newsmax.
The panel of judges of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that initially heard this case included Judges Lavenski Smith, Bobby Shepherd and William Benton. They were appointed by President George W. Bush during his tenure. This court sits in St. Louis and had just last week ruled similarly in the case of an Arkansas law that had sought to ban abortions in certain circumstances.
Attorney General of North Dakota, Wayne Stenejem, said regarding the development: "We knew it was unlikely and it came as no surprise. It was a long shot. And it's the end of our litigation on this issue. Even some of the staunchest pro-life groups agree there isn't much more we can do at this point," according to Japan Times.
Nancy Northrop, CEO and president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said, "This utterly cruel and unconstitutional ban would have made North Dakota the first state since Roe v. Wade to effectively ban abortion," according to the Examiner.
