North Dakota has only one abortion clinic and has been rated the worst state in the country for women, but the State Senate passed two bills on Thursday will make it even more difficult for women in the state to access abortion care.
North Dakota lawmakers passed a Personhood Constitutional Amendment initiative on Thursday that would amend the state’s constitution to give legal rights and protections to human embryos. If the ballot initiative passes the House, North Dakota voters will decide on it during the 2014 elections.
‘We are intending that it be a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, since Scalia said that the Supreme Court is waiting for states to raise a case,’ state Sen. Margaret Sitte (R), the sponsor of the personhood initiative, told HuffPost.
The Senate also passed a bill on Thursday that could shut down the North Dakota’s one abortion clinic, the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, by requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. A similar law in Mississippi is currently threatening to close the only clinic in that state because the hospitals near the Jackson clinic are all refusing the applications of doctors who perform abortions.
Sitte said that while the bill […]