North Dakota judge refuses to block part of abortion law that puts patients at risk

On Tuesday, a North Dakota judge refused to block a portion of the state’s strict abortion law, which puts doctors at risk of prosecution for performing abortions to save the life or preserve the health of their patients.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) signed one of the strictest abortion bills into law last April, which outlaws the procedure in almost all cases. The law allows slim exceptions for rape and incest, but only prior to six weeks of gestation. An abortion provider and several physicians in the state jointly filed a lawsuit in June challenging the legality of North Dakota’s abortion law.

In November, the plaintiffs also filed a preliminary injunction to block the portion of the law that allows abortion in cases to preserve the health of the mother, which they contended was too vague. However, State District Judge Bruce Romanick refused to block to portion and said the request was “not appropriate.”

“[Physicians face] the harm of having the threat of criminal prosecution hanging over their head every time they treat a patient with a medical complication,” said the plaintiffs’s attorney Meetra Mehdizadeh.