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Former ND clinic challenges state’s abortion restrictions
The Red River Women’s Clinic, now operating in Moorhead, Minn., was North Dakota’s sole clinic providing abortions. An ongoing lawsuit challenges the stricter law.
BISMARCK, N.D. — A former North Dakota abortion provider challenged one of the nation’s strictest abortion laws Monday, arguing the law “flagrantly violates” a court ruling supporting the right of patients in the state to obtain the procedure to preserve their life or health.
The lawsuit initially filed last year by what was the conservative state’s sole abortion provider seeks to block a law recently approved by the Republican-led Legislature and signed by Gov. Doug Burgum. The law outlaws all abortions except in cases where women could face death or a “serious health risk” or pregnancies caused by rape and incest, but only in the first six weeks, when many women often don’t know they are pregnant.
It seems unlikely that a patient who is pregnant due to rape or incest could get an abortion “within such a narrow time frame” as six weeks, Center for Reproductive Rights attorney Meetra Mehdizadeh told The Associated Press.
Conservative states have been working to restrict abortion access in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court last year overturning the constitutional right to an abortion. Other states, such as neighboring Minnesota, have moved to protect abortion access.
North Dakota had a so-called trigger ban, passed in 2007, to outlaw virtually all abortions if the Roe v. Wade decision was overturned. The Red River Women’s Clinic last year challenged the now-repealed trigger ban as unconstitutional, and on Monday, attorneys for the clinic and several physicians throughout North Dakota filed an amended complaint targeting the new law. The clinic moved from Fargo to neighboring Moorhead, Minn. after the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Bill sponsors pitched the changes as clearing up language in the state’s overlapping abortion laws, including the trigger ban and a 2013 law that sought to ban abortions as soon as cardiac activity is detected.
The new law includes a felony penalty for those who perform an abortion. The penalty excludes patients who undergo the procedure.
The law allows for treatment of ectopic and molar pregnancies, both nonviable complications.
The amended complaint says the new law “prevents pregnant people from accessing necessary, time-sensitive healthcare and threatens their lives, health and fertility.” The complaint says the law also “flagrantly violates” what the state Supreme Court recently held as “a fundamental right to obtain an abortion to preserve (a patient’s) life or her health.”
Mehdizadeh said it is still “pretty confusing” what the law allows, such as “when people are actually allowed to provide an abortion under the exceptions.”
The new law’s death and health risk provisions are narrow, she said. They don’t include mental health conditions, which Mehdizadeh said can be caused or exacerbated by pregnancy and are “one of the most common causes of pregnancy-related death.”
North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley said he expected the amended complaint to be filed, and said his office is reviewing it.
Republican state Sen. Janne Myrdal, the bill’s sponsor, said she expected the amended complaint, which she hadn’t read. She said the judge should dismiss the case and the plaintiffs should sue on the merits of the new law, “instead of amending an old case where the chapter (of state law) is no longer there.”
She attributed the “complaint about six weeks” to “some of the most liberal elements in our state.”
“I hope that if anybody experiences rape that they immediately, immediately go to a hospital and get a rape kit, get it taken care of so we can go after the rapist,” Myrdal said.
A state district court judge last year had temporarily blocked the trigger law and the court in March upheld the decision before the law was repealed.
Chief Justice Jon Jensen wrote in the majority opinion, “The North Dakota Constitution explicitly provides all citizens of North Dakota the right of enjoying and defending life and pursuing and obtaining safety. These rights implicitly include the right to obtain an abortion to preserve the woman’s life or health.”
The Legislature in response to the ruling added the “serious health risk” and molar pregnancy provisions to the bill, and put all of its language into a new chapter of state law. A molar pregnancy is when a tumor forms in the uterus.
Mehdizadeh said placing the law into a new section of code “is essentially an attempt to replace and repackage the trigger ban in defiance of the state’s high court and without any regard to the dangerous consequences to people’s health and lives.”
Myrdal said the move was to help the drafting process and to make the bill clearer.
Burgum, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president, has said the new law “clarifies and refines existing state law … and reaffirms North Dakota as a pro-life state.”
The amended complaint also adds several physicians licensed in obstetrics, gynecology and maternal-fetal medicine as plaintiffs, because “this ban has vague, confusing and non-medical language that has left providers without any clarity over when they can provide abortion care, and threatens them with severe punishment if they do,” according to Mehdizadeh.
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Wisconsin law enforcement said Katrina Baur, and her partner, Jesse Vang, are facing charges in connection with 3-year-old Elijah Vue’s death, including obstruction.
TWO RIVERS, Wis. — About a month after 3-year-old Elijah Vue’s remains were recovered from a private property in Wisconsin, state authorities announced Thursday that charges have been filed against the boy’s mother and her partner.
Wisconsin law enforcement said Katrina Baur, and her partner, Jesse Vang, are facing charges in connection with 3-year-old Elijah Vue’s death, including obstruction.
Vue went missing in February and it wasn’t until September that his body was recovered and identified.
Wadena-Deer Creek head coach Kyle Petermeier told families in a letter that a rash of injuries has reduced the roster to the point that playing is a “safety issue.”
WADENA, Minn. — A central Minnesota high school is pulling the plug on the remainder of its varsity football season, saying continuing to play would not be “safe or realistic.”
Wadena-Deer Creek head coach Kyle Petermeier sent a letter home to families earlier in the week, explaining the decision to skip the Wolverines’ final game and subsequent district playoffs. Petermeier said injuries began piling up as the club reached midseason, and roster numbers hit a dangerous low following Wadena-Deer Creek’s game in week 7.
Heading into the final regular season game against Staples-Motley, Wadena-Deer Creek had just eight healthy players from 10th to 12th grade. At that point, the coach said, a difficult but necessary decision had to be made in the interest of safety.
“We are in a position now where we would have to trot out a majority of our team that is 14 and 15 years old, and that is not in the best interest of our kids,” coach Petermeier explained. “To us, safety is ahead of any individual game result. Football is a physical sport and putting out a team of mostly 14-15 year olds vs. 17-18 year olds is not safe or realistic for our team, and even the opposing team playing. “
Before the decision to end their season, the Wolverines were 1-6 on the year, losing games by up to 50 points.
Coach Petermeier credited this year’s varsity squad for their preparation, training and effort, and told parents he believes the future of the Wadena-Deer Creek football program is bright with big participation numbers with players at the fifth- to ninth-grade levels.
“Football is a game that requires strength in numbers, and we will do anything we can to keep these numbers high and keep kids out for football,” he promised.
With a 17-member jury finally seated after an arduous selection process, the prosecution and defense on Thursday took the first step in building their cases.
MANKATO, Minn. — With an arduous jury selection process finally in the rearview mirror, both prosecutors and the defense began laying out their cases Thursday in the murder trial of Adam Fravel.
Fravel is charged with four felony counts – first-degree murder, first-degree premeditated murder, second-degree intentional murder, and second-degree unintentional murder while committing a felony offense – in the death of 26-year-old Maddi Kingsbury, his live-in partner and mother of Favel’s two children.
Kingsbury was last seen dropping her young son and daughter off at daycare in Winona the morning of March 31, 2023. She was reported missing by family and friends later that day. Maddi’s decomposing remains were found south of Winona 68 days later. The medical examiner eventually concluded she died of homicidal violence, likely asphyxiation.
Opening statements began shortly after 9 a.m. in Blue Earth County District Court, chosen as the venue after Judge Nancy Buytendorp ruled Fravel’s trial should be moved from Winona County due to extensive pre-trial publicity.
The state was the first to address the jury panel, with prosecutor Phil Prokopowicz immediately painting a picture of Maddi as a successful career woman and mother who had become increasingly frustrated with Fravel and his inability to contribute as their seven-year relationship crumbled.
Prokopowicz told jurors that Kingsbury had met a man, Spencer Sullivan, on a dating app and as their relationship grew Maddi decided to end her partnership with Fravel. Kingsbury contacted her landlord and said she was terminating the least, and that she had found a townhouse where she and the children would live.
The state also laid out a list of electronic and video evidence it says proves Fravel killed Maddi and engaged in an elaborate coverup, also indicating there will be testimony on alleged abuse in the relationship.
Fravel’s defense team began its opening statement with a geography lesson of sorts, with attorney Zach Bauer naming Winona and the small communities of Rushford, Choice, Mable, and the highways and county roads that run through them. Bauer asked jurors to think about the locations as they listen to testimony and absorb the evidence presented in Fravel’s trial.
The defense then began painting its own picture of the relationship between Fravel and Kingsbury, saying like many couples they had disagreements and there were times Maddi would move out the home and other times when Fravel would go home to stay with his parents.
Unlike prosecutors – who said Kingsbury’s relationship with Spencer Sullivan was getting deeper – the defense told jurors about texts from Maddi to her sister saying she was going to marry Adam Fravel. Ultimately, Bauer told the court, Kingsbury and Fravel agreed to separate but were doing so in a cooperative and planned manner.
Bauer told jurors that Fravel cooperated with police after Kingsbury disappeared, saying his defense team would show that investigators ignored evidence and facts that suggested his innocence. He indicated they will challenge the prosecution’s version of how and where the body was found, and who may have had access to the remote site not far from Mabel.
The defense also said they will call a neighbor who will testify they never heard any fighting or signs of discord in the relationship between Kingsbury and Fravel.
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