Medication Abortion Law In North Dakota Challenged In Court On 'Undue Burden' Standard

There is only one abortion clinic in North Dakota, and state lawmakers passed a bill last summer that would effectively ban medication abortions across the state.

After the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a challenge, seeking to overturn the measure, a judge in July issued a temporary restraining order against implementation of the law. The center's lawyers are now seeking a temporary injunction, arguing the measure pushes the limits of what the Supreme Court would deem an "undue burden" on women's right to abortion.

An attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights argued in district court on Friday that the new North Dakota law, which imposes requirements for the provision of "abortion-inducing drugs" that are difficult to meet, flies in the face of the Supreme Court's 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision. That decision prevents states from passing laws that have "the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus."

Medication abortions count for about a quarter of abortions in the first nine weeks of pregnancy and are widely recognized as safe and effective by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and other medical experts and professional organizations. The Center for Reproductive Rights, on behalf of Red River Women's Clinic in Fargo, N.D., argued on Friday that the bill "needlessly forc[es] women seeking an abortion to undergo surgery even when such a procedure may be medically inadvisable."

"The law bans medication abortions for no reason whatsoever and denies women a safe, common, effective procedure that's been used by 1.4 million women in the United States," said Suzanne Novak, senior staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights. "For some women, it's a matter of personal choice, but for other women it's medically inadvisable to have surgical abortions."

The defense argued that the law can't be challenged unless there is a prosecution going on. Further, the defense team said, the law places no undue burden on any woman who wants an abortion, because surgical abortion remains unchallenged in North Dakota.

Responded Judge Wickham Corwin: "Well, it certainly seems to put an undue burden on any woman who wants a medication abortion."

Corwin declined to make a decision on Friday as to whether to suspend the law and instead asked for a fuller factual record about the safety of medication abortion and its uses.

Comments

[Audra Norris]

08:12 PM on 01/31/2012

Liberals who are pro abortion do not realize that making it easy as taking a pill to rid yourself of the incovenient life you decided to create, is promoting unsafe sex, and promiscuity! how many women die from aids every ear, or Hpv that caused cancer? There were only 1000 abortions done to "save"the mothers, only 1000, and those numbers are skewed bc " saving a life" could also be done by delivery of the baby, or thier definition of "life at risk" Is laughable, migraines, depression, all could be controlled and not immediately life threatening!! Pro abortionist are selfish idiots, and are too lazy to "do what u gotta do",to take care of a beautiful, innocent, most pure in all the world. It's nothing less then genocide of low income minorities! That is why Sanger founded Planned Parenthood. To get rid of undesirables, and defectives! Evil Sanger would often say! Sick!

[jessicadevyn]

04:22 AM on 02/02/2012

What does promiscuity have to do with an abortion? Why do you think most of these women were out banging tons of different men? Are you jealous? BTW, A fifth of women who get abortions are MARRIED. You definitely don't have to be promiscuous to get HPV. And fetuses are not "innocent" and "pure". They can cause death, disability, lose of job, lose of finances, and loss of education to their host. And which is it? Are black women getting tons of abortions or are we having tons of babies to get welfare? (I am a black woman despite my Patrick Bateman avatar). We can't do both but republicans accuse us of both things depending on how they feel. I guess in your world we love friend chicken and watermelon too.

[Robert Cat]

10:52 PM on 01/30/2012

You pro-lifers can't have it both ways. You can't say that God grants life (in the form of the unborn) and then turn around and claim he has nothing to do with miscarriages.

Either he's in charge of granting life or he's not. Which is it?

Then you claim death is a natural part of life. What? God isn't in charge of death?

I thought God was in charge of everything. I've heard religous people say, "God called her/him back to be at his side" when someone dies.

This means that God is the biggest abortionist ever.

[NancyMarie]

05:14 PM on 01/31/2012

Death came into this world when Adam and Eve turned from God. His desire and gift for us is eternal life, but we live the reality of this fallen world, including natural death. Miscarriage is a natural death, abortion is the taking of a human life.

Even though we are subject to death, God offers us a way to eternal life, through the mercy and salvation of Jesus Christ. All sins, even murder, even abortion, can be forgiven, but we have to turn to God and ask forgiveness.

Those who live faithful lives and die in God's friendship will live forever. Come and see, get to know Him, He loves you so much you would cry. He loves our unborn children, too. Let the children have a chance at life, to know and love God.

[Robert Cat]

11:42 PM on 01/31/2012

What is it with your God and his creating Adam and Eve and then getting angry with them for doing what he created them to do?

God is in charge of everything. He is to blame for every single bad thing that happens down here, not man.

Oh, yes, God is so loving that the #1 cause of death in the world for children is starvation. Nice God you believe in.

[giftsthatpurr]

09:37 PM on 01/29/2012

Such a stupid waste of money and court/ legal time. It is disgusting to know that an entire State has only one place where women can safely terminate an unwanted pregnancy. One safe place; and now the "leaders of the people" (sick) want to take away a safe, medicinal method that not only saves individual women money, but tax payers as well since it is the tax payers who are paying for this ugly legal measure to to go through all these legal proceedings, as well as the care of any unwanted children that end up in foster systems. All this, just to control and subjugate women. Our Democratic Republic is beginning to crumble, and these hateful people are using women to destroy it.

[ncal]

07:45 AM on 03/28/2013

Between state-managed healthcare and state-managed abortion and contraception, women are going to start voting with their feet (or other viable means of transportation). Bet on it. Women are nothing (as a group, in general) if not pragmatic. This is gonna be fun to watch. If the Dems had tried to pass healthcare reform just for the blue states, the Republicans would have been up in arms. John Roberts did it with the stroke of his pen. The Republicans just passed the ND bill to prevent genetic-deformity abortions at the same time they invested in fracking on a massive scale. They maybe should start some research on tadpoles.

[giftsthatpurr]

07:58 PM on 01/29/2012

This dispicable law SHOULD be challenged. Forcing an expensive and More complicated surgical procedure not only makes no sense, but is tantamount to telling women - we'll make you go through as much pain as possible to punish you for having sex - married or not, raped or victims of incest or not, we puritanical, up-tight judgemental know-it-alls want you punished. We don't care how much more it costs, or how close we are getting to Sharia law, we just want to make scapegoats out of women.

[dtallwalk]

10:26 PM on 01/28/2012

You know these guy are becoming more and more like Jim(don't drink the cool aid) Jones
Maybe we should deport these people to south amreica and they can have at it

[Jerry Vasquez]

07:28 PM on 01/28/2012

We'll see if THIS court will up hold the ruling of the '92 court. I would not be surprised to find
that they lack the spine, considering that they've been bought and paid for.

[fortressfountain]

06:40 PM on 01/28/2012

I wonder how many of these people think people should die if they cannot afford health insurance? I bet all of them.

[Atwill]

05:39 PM on 01/28/2012

I am suprised these pro lifers dont want male masterbation to be against the law. since it waste sperm. dang, i'd be in prison for life.

[Alex Luck]

06:08 PM on 01/28/2012

Better not make it illegal. At my age it's one of the few things where I still excel.

[giftsthatpurr]

09:08 PM on 01/28/2012

Thanks for making me laugh!

[traceymarie]

09:40 PM on 01/28/2012

The two of you are hysterical

[Kara Kramer]

07:30 PM on 01/28/2012

Let's stop calling them prolife. They're antichoice, and the only reason they get any hearing is because they twist language.

[Alex Luck]

08:07 PM on 01/28/2012

True! They twist ALL their language, from "death tax" to "pro-life".

[Mike Cofta]

09:28 PM on 01/28/2012

...no, I'd say they are just "Pro-Life".

[ProgressivesLoveAmerica]

05:10 PM on 01/28/2012

This just goes to show that in these tough economic times, the GOP know for a fact that their trickle-down economic platform won't do a single thing to fix the situation, so they go to their go-to plan of action when they have nothing substantive to offer:

They feed red meat to their dangerous fanatical base.

The only problem is that not even people within that fanatical religious base could possibly hold up to the ideal that they purportedly espouse. Between 33% and 43% of all women in this country will terminate at least one pregnancy in their lifetime. Think about these figures. They supercede religious, racial, class, and regional barriers. In other words, these women aren't all bi-coastal secular humanists.

That means there has got to be a lot of self-contradiction within the so-called "pro-life" movement.
http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html

It's helpful to point this out because it helps illustrate the point that NOBODY ought to be judgmental on the issue of womens' rights. Even if you're not a woman, playing these games with womens' rights where you restrict reasonable access to reproductive health care could result in painful or humiliating injury or death to some beloved woman in your life.

[Kara Kramer]

07:32 PM on 01/28/2012

A lot of them don't HAVE a beloved women in their life. Santorum encouraged his wife to carry a dead fetus and would encourage his daughter to carry her rapist's babies.
Most antichoicers, even the female ones, don't like women, at all.

[NancyMarie]

09:39 PM on 01/28/2012

How about playing games with women and children's lives, is that okay with you? Because that is what is happening when these abortion clinics give out RU486 without a real doctor's supervision, via video med dispensing systems. Women are giving a harsh combination of drugs that were originally intended as chemo drugs (the clinics call them M&Ms isn't that cute?), then get to go home and suffer through a self-induced and often painful miscarriage.

Many, many, post-abortive women like myself become pro-life after they have recovered from the trauma sufficiently to stand up and be silent no more about what happened to them, to their children, to their lives and marriages and families. Is the the self-contradiction you're talking about?

Women have been collectively traumatized by the violence of abortion for long enough, and, yes, many of us have become pro-life. Are we the dangerouse fanatics you are talking about? For every one of the 54 million abortions in this country since 1973 (and before) there are wounded women and men, and our children, our future and our hope, are decimated.

Pregnant women deserve support, not abortion.

[ProgressivesLoveAmerica]

02:31 PM on 01/29/2012

I think you're focusing on one aspect of this issue.

Sure, many women suffer psychological & physical trauma after abortions. But this does not justify a prohibitionist stance on access to womens' reproductive health care.

I agree that pregnant women need support, if they so choose to keep the pregnancy. This country, however, does not provide the basic social services to support pregnant women in poor or vulnerable circumstances. Unfortunately, the very people who call themselves "pro-life" ofetn align themselves with a political platform that seems specifically designed to encourage more abortions through lack sex education, a deficient social saftey-net, and lack of education in general.

You're forgetting that at the end of the day it is a choice.

Just because you came to regret your choice doesn't mean you ought to help take away the choice of other women after you, many of whom may not even suffer the same trauma you did. Even if there is trauma afterward, like I said, there needs to be a basic social safety net to help administer to the needs of these women. Psychological counseling, however, can get quite expensive. There's a good service called Pro-Voice, which is actually neutral on the matter, but allows women to simply voice their opinions without judgment.

What I WAS referencing are women who are ALREADY "pro-life," but choose to terminate pregnancies anyway. THAT is self-contradiction. I wasn't talking about converts after the fact. Read the link I provided. It's very telling.

[giftsthatpurr]

08:04 PM on 01/29/2012

It is your religiosity, not trauma, that has you posting support for anti-choice. I am very familiar with your comments. However, this one is more dramatic and emotionally charged than the ones I remember from the past.

[Artu Di-tu]

04:46 PM on 01/28/2012

GOP-TP, stop meddling in our "personal" lives. It goes totally against what you say your party stands for...smaller government, unless you want the government to control women...HYPOCRITES!

[CA93010]

04:14 PM on 01/28/2012

What do the insurance companies say?

A $100 of drugs versus a $10,000 dollar surgery? Hmmmm.

[Barbara DeZan]

01:27 AM on 01/29/2012

It's what works, zippy.

Abortion is the extreme solution.

There are medications that can be used under limited circumstances.

"Take a series of pills.......or surgical procedure.....Hmmmmmm"

[CA93010]

02:02 PM on 01/29/2012

So, "dear", what's your point?

[Aquest]

06:51 PM on 01/29/2012

Abortions do not cost anywhere near $10,000.

http://civilliberty.about.com/od/abortion/f/Average-Cost-of-an-Abortion.htm

[CA93010]

09:38 PM on 01/29/2012

Yes I know, it was a metaphor. Relax.

[yozampj]

03:46 PM on 01/28/2012

My daughter-in-law had an ectopic pregnancy -- the egg implanted in a fallopian tube. There is no way the pregnancy can continue long enough to produce a viable fetus/baby. If there is no medical intervention the pregnancy will terminate itself by rupturing the tube, which could cause a woman to bleed to death if she doesn't get emergency surgery soon enough. The safest alternative is to terminate the pregnancy as early as possible with a drug. The North Dakota law would prevent her from doing that. Instead she would need to have invasive surgery with greater risks, higher cost, and longer recovery time keeping her from working. For what good reason?

[llisa]

04:25 PM on 01/28/2012

For no legal or logical reason at all.

My daughter had a tubal pregnancy also. They had to do a surgical abortion. She had been having trouble getting pregnant and had only one good Fallopian tube. Now she has none.

This, of course, was not a baby she wanted to abort, but it was medically necessary to do so. But all women should have the option of abortion should they need it, or should they choose it.

[Lady1genius]

04:53 PM on 01/28/2012

Sorry she had to go through the trauma of surgery. I assume for whatever reason medication wasn't an option? I know that methotrexate as the gold standard for ectopic pregnancy is fairly new, and it preserves a woman's fertility. It should be used wherever possible, as it's much safer for the woman, too.

[Lady1genius]

04:27 PM on 01/28/2012

Actually, I believe methotrexate is the drug used to treat an ectopic pregnancy, and therefore wouldn't be affected by this particular law, which specifies different drugs.

[yozampj]

07:57 PM on 01/28/2012

Thanks for the information. State law did not prevent my daughter-in-law from a 'medical abortion' however before its work could be completed, she did have a rupture, was driving at the time, and managed to drive herself to the hospital. She collapsed in the ER lobby and was rushed into surgery. She's doing well. I would want any woman to have access to the drugs. Thanks again.

[BobRobertsFeltRedundant]

02:16 PM on 01/28/2012

for some reason the tea bags never hold pro life rallies in front of the pentagon

[Greta42]

04:34 PM on 01/28/2012

Faved again, Bob, for a very relevant comment.

[Barbara DeZan]

01:29 AM on 01/29/2012

Or in front of San Quentin and other places where the death penalty is applied.

Strap a man to a table, pump him full of toxic poisons until he's dead.

Hmmmmm

Doesn't sound prolife to me.

[Try the truth]

01:58 PM on 01/28/2012

Anyone notice all the women in the main picture are for keeping it legal! The guy is the one holding the sign to defund PP!

[poemsgalore3]

03:27 PM on 01/28/2012

Yes and we must applaud this guy and thank God there are many more like him that I know of here in Ireland. Our men stand up for our women; they stand with us, behind us, beside us and up for us, in helping protect our little unborn babies.They know the preciousness of human life and of our next generation. And if there are women in this picture for keeping abortion legal (that horrible word "abortion") how sad and degenerate, but you will always find women and men on the side of abortion just as you will always find women and men who oppose it. No matter how many shout they want abortion for all, doesn't make it right. A hundred wrongs don't make one right.

[Kara Kramer]

08:06 PM on 01/28/2012

poemsgalore,
Any man who wants the state to take over your body isn't standing up for you, he's standing ON you, and it's really sad that you can't see that.

PS Have any of these brave men stood up for the thousands of children raped by the antichoice Irish catholic church? Or do they only believe in protecting children BEFORE they exist?

FUN FACT:
Abortion is a MISUSED word. It actually means a MISCARRIAGE, the medical term for which is a SPONTANEOUS ABORTION.
The medical term for the procedure to end a pregnancy is actually Termination of pregnancy, or T.O.P.
Abortion was one of the first words the misogynist movement co opted when they decided to start telling lies to restrict women's movement, freedom and health care.
It actually doesn't mean what everyone thinks it means at all.
Doctors terminate pregnancies, but the only abortionist is actually mother nature.

[SmileAndActNice]

08:17 PM on 01/28/2012

Hes a hypocrite.

If you believe that ownership to ones body is contingent on someone else not needing it more than you then you have an obligation to give of your flesh to save born people who need human tissue to live

But none of you lot will put your bodies where your mouths are. Rabid dogs barking and howling about spending other people's blood, but much more restrained when it comes to sharing your own.

[CA93010]

04:16 PM on 01/28/2012

After looking at him, what better argument to continue with the drugs?

[Try the truth]

05:01 PM on 01/28/2012

Oh! You are naughty! :)

[giftsthatpurr]

08:26 PM on 01/29/2012

LOL

[TedEjr]

01:53 PM on 01/28/2012

From the article---The defense argued that the law can't be challenged unless there is a prosecution going on---AND---Further, the defense team said, the law places no undue burden on any woman who wants an abortion, because surgical abortion remains unchallenged in North Dakota. (END)

Talk about activism.

They are, or were, asking the Judge to rewrite the conditions under which a law can be challenged.

Republicans. The put the flop into flip flop.

[Lady1genius]

02:24 PM on 01/28/2012

I'm not an attorney, but I'm pretty sure that laws put on the books strictly to endanger women could be challenged on their face. There can be no other reason for such a law.
That would be like saying doctors must treat atrial fibrillation with a heart transplant rather than prescribing digoxin. Such a "law" would never be tolerated by the populace of any state, but I suppose messing with women is ok, because after all, we're just fetal containers with no inherent value except as incubators.

[TedEjr]

02:59 PM on 01/28/2012

A law can be challenged under the two conditions.

1---One has standing.
2---It is a law on the books.

1---Standing. You have to be directly impacted by the law. In other words, your daughter could not challenge a law which states that all male children must have their toenails painted. Unless, she was an adult with a male child.

2---You cannot challenge legislation, but you can challenge laws. I refer back to Arizona's SB1070, the immigration law. If you recall, the Justice Department had to wait until it was signed into law BEFORE they could take action. And, the minute it was, they did. BEFORE anyone was prosecuted under it.

[candcje]

03:01 PM on 01/28/2012

I wonder if it would help these tea drinking (mostly white, middle/upper class males) if we passed a law that said their erectile dysfunction could not be treated with a little blue pill, but must now be treated only with a penile transplant or erectile implant - both of which would result in serious loss of local sensation.... Maybe that would help shed some light on this nonsense for them.

[Karissa36]

07:02 PM on 01/29/2012

Right. This was the anti-choice game plan. First, they enact a law that threatens doctors if they prescribe the drugs. No doctor is willing to risk it, so no doctor prescribes the drugs. Since no doctor breaks the law, there are no prosecutions. Women are denied access to the drugs, and no one can challenge the law.

The Judge blew them out of the water on this one.

[TedEjr]

11:45 PM on 01/29/2012

Posted---The Judge blew them out of the water on this one. (END)

From the article---Responded Judge Wickham Corwin: "Well, it certainly seems to put an undue burden on any woman who wants a medication abortion." (END)

I would say that you summed it up quite succinctly.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall, and to have seen the look on the abortion deniers faces, when the Judge uttered that statement.

;-)