Case: Wrigley v. Romanick

Court: North Dakota Supreme Court

Citation: 988 N.W.2d 231 (N.D. 2023)

Holding: The Supreme Court of North Dakota affirmed a preliminary injunction against the state’s trigger ban criminalizing all abortions and providing only narrow affirmative defenses. The court held that there is a fundamental right to abortion to preserve life or health under the state’s constitution. Id. at 238-40.

Constitutional Claims: Due process clause, and section 1, which provides in relevant part: “All individuals are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty . . . [and] pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness . . . which shall not be infringed.”

Key Reasoning: Analyzing the state’s constitution “in light of the contemporaneous history existing at and prior to the adoption of the constitutional provision,” the court reasoned that the provisions guaranteeing the right to “enjoy and defend life” and “pursue and obtain safety” implicitly include the right to obtain an abortion to preserve a pregnant person’s life or health.  Id. at 240.  The court observed that the state’s history and tradition support this conclusion—although the state criminalized abortions before and around statehood, it explicitly provided that abortions to preserve a pregnant person’s life or health would not be considered a criminal act, and medical journals published shortly after statehood indicated this was common knowledge.  Id. at 240-41.

Case Status/Subsequent History: After the supreme court remanded this case, the state legislature repealed the law and enacted a new law criminalizing abortion but providing limited exceptions including if necessary “based on reasonable medical judgment” to prevent the death or serious health risk to a pregnant person, excluding psychological or emotional conditions.  Challengers argued the new law is unconstitutionally vague and violates a pregnant person’s fundamental right to obtain an abortion to preserve her life or health.  In September 2024, the trial court held that the statute is unconstitutional. 

The state appealed, requesting a stay of the trial court’s decision and that it be permitted to enforce the law while it appealed the decision. In January 2025, the Supreme Court of North Dakota denied this request, reasoning that the law was likely unconstitutionally vague and unlikely to survive strict scrutiny, and reiterating its prior conclusion, based on the state’s history and tradition, that pregnant women in North Dakota have a fundamental right to obtain an abortion to preserve their life or health. Access Indep. Health Servs., Inc. v. Wrigley, Case No. 20240291, 2025 ND 26, ¶ 16-36 (2025).