On Thursday, a judge blocked a North Dakota law that would have instated a near-total abortion ban in the state. The law was scheduled to go into effect on Friday.
Judge Bruce Romanick granted a preliminary injunction on the law after a North Dakota abortion provider challenged the law after the fallout of Roe v. Wade.
Red River Women’s Clinic, the abortion provider at the center of the legal challenge, used to be North Dakota’s only abortion clinic until it moved just over state lines into Minnesota, The Washington Post reported.
The clinic relocated from Fargo to Moorhead, Minn., on Aug. 6 to stay open in the event that the North Dakota trigger ban went into effect. Tammi Kromenaker, the clinic’s director, said Red River Women’s Clinic would probably stay in Moorhead even if it wins its lawsuit and defeats the trigger ban, because Minnesota’s abortion laws are far more permissive.
“It’s like night and day between Minnesota and North Dakota,” Kromenaker said.
This week, several states had abortion trigger laws go into effect, including Texas, as Townhall covered.
Pro-abortion Vice President Kamala Harris said on Twitter on Thursday that laws protecting the unborn are “extreme” and that pro-life legislators do not trust women.
Today, abortion bans are going into effect in Idaho, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas. Tomorrow, one will likely go into effect in North Dakota. The legislators who passed these extreme laws don’t trust women of their states to make decisions about their bodies. @POTUS and I do.
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) August 25, 2022
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a statement on Friday saying that abortion rights are “fundamental" and said that Congress should work on legislation to protect abortion.
NEW: Statement from White House press sec. as more states are set to severely restrict abortion: "Congress should act immediately to pass a law restoring the protections of Roe–and people across the country to should make their voices heard."
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 26, 2022
READ MORE: https://t.co/akskf4swRn pic.twitter.com/zDgNNAbBtU
However, the Supreme Court pointed out in the majority opinion in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that abortion is not protected in the U.S. Constitution and that Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey were both wrongly decided.
"The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”
Justice Samuel Alito pointed out how Roe was on a “collision course” with the Constitution from the day it was decided.
“Like the infamous decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, Roe was also egregiously wrong and on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided. Casey perpetuated its errors, calling both sides of the national controversy to resolve their debate, but in doing so, Casey necessarily declared a winning side. Those on the losing side—those who sought to advance the State’s interest in fetal life—could no longer seek to persuade their elected representatives to adopt policies consistent with their views. The Court short-circuited the democratic process by closing it to the large number of Americans who disagreed with Roe.”
This week, Texas Rep. Chip Roy (R) told Townhall that the idea that life begins at conception is "fundamental" and that unborn Americans deserve to be protected. Texas' trigger law that went into effect makes abortion a felony.
"Today marks the first day in almost 50 years that Texans' voices are no longer silenced by an overreaching Supreme Court on the fundamental question of when life begins and demands protection.
State law, once again, protects and acknowledges the fundamental truth that life begins at conception and that the smallest of our fellow Texans deserve the same legal protection as the rest of us.
God bless Texas, and God bless our children."