type: timeline_event
The North Dakota Supreme Court reinstated the state's near-total abortion ban on November 21, 2025, despite three of five justices agreeing the ban is unconstitutionally vague under the state constitution. The ban went back into effect because the state constitution requires at least four of five justices to agree for a law to be found unconstitutional—a supermajority requirement that allowed the minority to impose abortion prohibition despite the majority finding constitutional defects.
Justice Jerod E. Tufte and Chief Justice Jon J. Jensen voted to uphold the ban, preventing the four-justice supermajority needed to strike it down. The ruling reversed District Judge Bruce Romanick's September 2024 decision that had found the ban unconstitutional and allowed abortion to resume in North Dakota.
Former Republican Governor Doug Burgum signed the law prohibiting nearly all abortions in April 2023. The ban makes performing an abortion a felony crime punishable by up to five years in prison and a 10,000 dollar fine, though it specifically protects patients from prosecution. Exceptions exist only for rape or incest in the first six weeks—before many women know they are pregnant—and to prevent the mother's death or a "serious health risk."
The supermajority requirement for finding laws unconstitutional represents a structural impediment to constitutional rights enforcement. Three justices determined the abortion ban violated the state constitution's vagueness doctrine, but the heightened threshold allowed two justices to effectively override that constitutional determination and impose a policy rejected by the court majority.
North Dakota's only abortion provider had already relocated in 2022 from Fargo to nearby Moorhead, Minnesota, in anticipation of the ban. The ruling left North Dakota residents with no in-state abortion access. North Dakota joined 12 other states enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with another four states barring it at or around six weeks gestational age.
The decision exemplified how procedural requirements in state constitutions can be weaponized to prevent judicial protection of rights even when courts find laws unconstitutional, entrenching minority rule through supermajority thresholds.