North Dakota women will be better protected from dangerous, life-ending drugs as the result of a decision by the North Dakota Supreme Court today. The state’s high court reversed a North Dakota trial judge and set aside his injunction of a law that regulates chemical abortion drugs, based on Americans United for Life model legislation. The law requires that the drugs used to end pre-born life be administered only in the way approved by the FDA.
“We know that women have died when given life-ending, chemical abortion drugs,” said AUL President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest. “Big Abortion is determined to increase profits and take advantage of women by selling the dangerous drugs in ways that have been linked to at least eight deaths. But one by one, courts are telling Big Abortion ‘no.’”
The case, MKB Management v. Burdick, stems from a challenge to HB 1297, enacted in 2011 and sponsored by AUL ally Representative Bette Grande. A North Dakota trial court invalidated the law, and the State appealed to the North Dakota Supreme Court, which, under applicable state laws, will declare a state law unconstitutional only if four Justices agree. Today, the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled that there was not a sufficient majority to invalidate the law, meaning that trial court’s decision permanently enjoining the law is reversed.
AUL filed an amicus curiae “friend-of-the-court” brief on behalf of 49 North Dakota Legislators, including bill sponsor Representative Grande. The brief argued that the State Legislature had a substantial interest in regulating abortion to protect women’s health, and that the U.S. Supreme Court’s precedents supported the law.
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Similar laws have already been upheld in Texas and Ohio, and last week a state trial court in Oklahoma refused to enjoin a 2014 abortion-inducing drug regulation while it evaluates abortion advocates’ challenge to that law. An Arizona law, preliminarily enjoined by the Ninth Circuit, is currently pending on a cert petition in the U.S. Supreme Court.
For more on the health-risks of abortion to women and their unborn children, click here.
