Submitted Photo North Dakota’s abortion ban, which just secured a legal victory, carries penalties that include a maximum of five years of imprisonment, a fine of $10,000, or both. Adobe Stock photo.

Reproductive-rights advocates said they are still considering next steps following a court ruling which reinstated North Dakota’s abortion ban. In the meantime, they are laying out what the situation looks like for both patients and providers.

On Friday, the North Dakota Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling calling the state’s ban was unconstitutionally vague. The law was adopted in 2023 after the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal protections several months prior.

Amy Jacobson, executive director of Prairie Action ND, said the outcome creates health dangers for patients and legal confusion for physicians. She stressed it does not mean there are travel bans to states where abortion is legal, including neighboring Minnesota.

“It is legal to cross states and go and receive care, and we really want people to know that,” Jacobson said. “Sometimes intentionally, abortion bans are intended to scare people, and one of the ways that they scare people is making them think that they can’t receive care in other places.”

The rhetoric surfaced as other Republican-led states with bans sought to restrict travel for such care, with those provisions being curtailed by the courts. Jacobson agreed with concerns the legal consequences will lead to a loss of OB/GYNs, as seen with Idaho’s ban. Backers of North Dakota’s law said it is needed to protect unborn children and in court, they said opponents leaned on “hypothetical arguments” in challenging the statute.

Looking ahead, Jacobson noted even though North Dakota lawmakers will not meet for a regular session until 2027, advocates wonder if other protections will eventually suffer the same fate.

“It is a slippery slope for all sorts of other reproductive health-related care, whether it’s medication (for) abortion, whether it’s access to birth control,” Jacobson said.

In the spring legislative session, North Dakota lawmakers took up some of the debates, although a number of Republican lawmakers acknowledged certain proposals would have generated severe pushback, especially with IVF treatments part of the conversation.

Jacobson emphasized it is important to remember in a statewide poll, a majority of North Dakotans opposed the newly reinstated abortion law, which bans the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, with few exceptions.