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North Dakota

Judge overturns strict N.D. anti-abortion law

Doug Stanglin
USA TODAY
Protesters demonstrate at an abortion-rights rally at the state Capitol in Bismarck, N.D., in March 2013, following passage of restrictive anti-abortion laws.

A federal judge Wednesday overturned as unconstitutional a North Dakota law banning abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland ruled that the law banning abortions when a fetal heartbeat is detected "cannot withstand a constitutional challenge."

Supporters of the measure have cast it as a challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 ruling that legalized abortion up until a fetus is considered viable, usually at 22 to 24 weeks. Abortion rights advocates call the heartbeat law the most restrictive in the country.

The bill was one of four anti-abortion bills passed overwhelmingly by the state's Republican Legislature and signed last year by Republican Gov. Jack Dalrymple.

The law had been set to go into effect last August, but Hovland granted a temporary injunction after the Red River Women's Clinic, the state's only abortion clinic, filed a lawsuit against the measure.

North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said he will study the opinion and meet with the governor, among others, before deciding the state's response.

Stenehjem indicated that he was not surprised by Hovland's decision.

In issuing his temporary injunction last year, Hovland wrote, "The State of North Dakota has presented no evidence to justify the passage of this troubling law. The State has extended an invitation to an expensive court battle over a law restricting abortions that is a blatant violation of the constitutional guarantees afforded to all women."

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