North Dakota high court: Judge should revisit abortion order

FARGO, N.D. (AP) — The North Dakota Supreme Court ordered a lower court judge to reconsider his decision to prevent the state's abortion ban from taking effect pending the outcome of a clinic's legal challenge.

The state Supreme Court late Tuesday ordered Judge Bruce Romanick to weigh the clinic’s chances of succeeding and while reconsidering whether his decision to temporarily halt enforcement of the ban was correct.

The Red River Women’s Clinic, the state’s only abortion clinic, argues that the state’s constitution grants the right to abortion.

Romanick last month denied a request to lift his stay of a law banning abortion while the clinic's challenge is pending. The judge wrote that he was not ruling on the probability of the clinic winning the lawsuit, rather that more time was needed to make a proper judgment. It was the second time the judge blocked the so-called trigger law, which had been set to take effect at the end of August.

North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley certified a July 28 closing date a few days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. But Romanick rejected that date based on a technical issue involving the timing of the ban, after which Wrigley argued that the judge hadn’t sufficiently considered whether the clinic's lawsuit would succeed.

The high court said in its ruling Tuesday that Romanick should “determine the substantial probability of succeeding on the merits and then to determine whether the injunction remains appropriate based on all the factors.”

Romanick is required to respond by Oct. 17.

Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School, said the ruling comes as no surprise.

“This is entirely, if not embarrassingly, predictable,” Turley said. “Judge Romanick’s opinion was notably disconnected...