By Peter Pinedo
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 27, 2024 / 15:45 pm
Here’s a roundup of the latest developments in the U.S. regarding abortion and pro-life issues.
North Dakota pro-life law repealed
An order signed by North Dakota District Court Judge Bruce Romanick on Thursday officially repealed the state’s law protecting unborn life at conception because it violates the state constitution.
Romanick said in the order that North Dakota’s pro-life law is unconstitutional because it infringes on a “woman’s fundamental right to procreative autonomy” and “takes away a woman’s fundamental rights to liberty and her fundamental right to pursue and obtain safety and happiness.”
This puts into effect a 24-page ruling Romanick issued 14 days earlier that declared abortion legal in North Dakota up to the point of viability, typically defined as 22 or 23 weeks of pregnancy.
The ruling overturned the law that North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a Republican, signed in April 2023. The law allowed abortion only in certain cases, such as pregnancies caused by rape or incest, within the first six weeks of pregnancy and cases of serious health risk for the mother.
When he signed the bill, Burgum said the measure “clarifies and refines existing state law, which was triggered into effect by the Dobbs decision and reaffirms North Dakota as a pro-life state.”
Mike Nowatzki, a representative for Burgum, told CNA that the state attorney general will appeal the ruling to the North Dakota Supreme Court. Nowatzki said the governor “generally doesn’t comment on pending litigation.”
Texas attorney general sues Austin for funding abortion travel
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the city of Austin for using public funds to give grants for out-of-state abortion travel.
According to local news outlet KXAN, Austin City Council Member Vanessa Fuentes announced earlier this month that the city was moving forward with its Reproductive Health Grant. The grant allocates $400,000 in taxpayer funding from the city’s 2024 and 2025 fiscal budgets to be given to Austin women seeking out-of-state abortions. The funds are meant to be used for travel, lodging, child care, and food while seeking an abortion.
Paxton filed his lawsuit on Friday in the state district court for Travis County, where Austin is located. The attorney general is seeking a restraining order against the city to stop it from using tax dollars to promote abortion.
In a Friday press statement, Paxton said the city of Austin is “illegally seeking to use public funding to support travel expenses for out-of-state abortions.”
“No city in Texas has the authority to spend taxpayer money in this manner,” Paxton said. “The Texas Constitution prohibits governmental entities from doing so.”
Washington stockpiles abortion drugs in event of Trump victory
The state of Washington is reportedly stockpiling abortion drugs in the event that former president Donald Trump is reelected to the presidency this November.
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Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, told Reuters this week that the state is maintaining a stockpile of at least 30,000 doses of the abortion drug mifepristone. According to Reuters, the stockpile is enough to supply the state’s abortion needs “for an estimated three years.”
Last year, a federal judge in Texas ordered the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) to revoke its approval of mifepristone because the agency did not follow proper testing and safety protocols when it approved the drug in 2000. The ruling was ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court, which said the doctors who brought the case forward did not have standing to sue the FDA. The Supreme Court’s ruling left open the possibility for other challenges to mifepristone in the future.
Inslee told Reuters that “the Supreme Court decision was not definitive in protecting mifepristone regarding the FDA authorization. The court said there was no standing, which leads them later on to be able to pull the rug out from underneath women with the help of Donald Trump. So as long as Trump is on the scene, that risk exists, and so I’m glad that we have that [sic] stockpiles.”
Inslee added that the struggle over abortion access “is a long-term threat.”
“Those who want to take away reproductive health for women, they’re not going to stop last week, this week, or next week. It is a multi-decadal effort, and we have to continually keep people out of public office who can threaten women in this country, that certainly includes this November,” he said.
Judge bars censorship of pregnancy centers in New York
Federal Judge John Sinatra issued an order this week that extended his previous ruling blocking efforts by the state to censor pregnancy resource centers. This week’s ruling extends the blockage to an additional center, the Summit Life Outreach Center.
The rulings temporarily block New York Attorney General Letitia James’ attempt to keep the pregnancy centers from promoting abortion pill reversal medications.
This comes after Sinatra issued a temporary injunction against the state in August to apply to some 51 pregnancy centers.
Abortion pill reversal — sometimes referred to as APR — is a medication meant to stop a chemical abortion after the process has already been initiated.
While the chemical abortion pill mifepristone works by cutting off progesterone, essentially starving the unborn baby to death, abortion pill reversal can restore progesterone flow in the womb, reversing the effects of mifepristone.
James sued 11 faith-based pregnancy centers in the state in May, claiming the centers’ promotion of abortion pill reversal was spreading “false and misleading” information and endangering women.
Sinatra’s rulings mean that the pregnancy centers involved in the suits will continue to be able to promote abortion pill reversal while the cases make their way through the courts.
