Judge blocks enforcement of law banning abortion after fetal heartbeat

July 24, 2013

A federal district court judge has blocked enforcement of a new North Dakota law that would have banned most abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected.

The Supreme Court has ruled “that viability marks the earliest point at which a state’s interest in fetal life may be adequate to justify a ban on non-therapeutic abortions,” wrote Judge Daniel Hovland, who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush. “The Defendants have wholly failed to provide any conclusive evidence that a fetus, at the time a heartbeat is detected around six weeks, could live outside of the mother’s womb and thus be ‘viable.’”

The law, he added, “would ban nearly 90% of all abortions performed at the only clinic in North Dakota which provides such services, in direct contradiction to United States Supreme Court precedent.”

 

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Further information:

• Full text of ruling (Washington Post)
• Judge halts North Dakota heartbeat law banning abortion after 6 weeks: ‘clearly unconstitutional’ (LifeSiteNews.com)