North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum has signed a bill into law prohibiting nearly all abortions in the state. Gov. Burgum signed the bill (SB 2150) on Monday, April 24, 2023, making abortion illegal in the state. The bill provides for exceptions in cases of rape or incest if the preborn child is six-weeks old or less, or to save the life of the mother.

The North Dakota House of Representatives passed the bill on April 17 in a 76-14 vote. The state Senate subsequently approved the bill by an overwhelming margin in a 42-5 vote on April 19. “This bill clarifies and refines existing state law … and reaffirms North Dakota as a pro-life state,” Gov. Burgum said in a statement.

North Dakota has a trigger law which prohibits abortion in the state and was intended to take effect following the reversal of Roe v. Wade. However, the ban is currently blocked after being challenged in court.

Red River Women’s Clinic is fighting North Dakota’s trigger law and was the only abortion clinic in Minnesota for two decades, until moving to Moorhead, Minnesota following the overturning of Roe.

On March 16 the North Dakota Supreme Court upheld a preliminary injunction against the trigger law. Importantly, the court noted that the “regulation of abortion is within the authority of the legislature under the North Dakota Constitution.”

This week the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado heard arguments in a case challenging the legality of a recently passed law prohibiting abortion pill reversal as treatment for women who begin a chemical abortion but have a change of heart and wish to save their babies from abortion.

The abortion lobby, intent on taking choice away from women, fast-tracked a bill that prohibits Colorado doctors from prescribing progesterone to women who begin a chemical abortion and come to regret their decision.

A chemical abortion, or medication abortion, is a two-step process. The first pill, mifepristone, prohibits a baby’s further development and eventually kills it. The second pill, misoprostol, expels the baby from the mother’s body.

Women who begin a chemical abortion but change their minds within 72 hours of taking the first pill may be able to reverse the abortion with a treatment of progesterone. The same medication has been given for decades to women who wish to become pregnant or have high risk pregnancies.

Abortion pill reversal has a success rate of 64%. Within days of the new Colorado law being signed into law, Bella Health and Wellness, a Catholic health clinic in Colorado that offers abortion pill reversal treatment, filed a lawsuit claiming the new law violates their freedom of speech and religious expression.

Lindsey Barr was a substitute teacher in Bryan County Schools, Georgia, where her children attend McAllister Elementary. When she found the school librarian planned to read the picture book All Are Welcome to students — including her own children — Barr was concerned and expressed her thoughts to the principal.

For this, she was fired.

After Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorney’s filed a lawsuit against the school and district, the school agreed to a settlement with Barr. ADF announced:

“Officials at McAllister Elementary and Bryan County Schools have agreed to reinstate her, pay $181,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees, and publicly expressed regret after violating her constitutionally protected freedoms.”

The book describes a day in the life of school children, from the morning bell through learning, lunch and recess, to the end of the school day, along with an emphasis on diversity and with the repeated refrain, “All are welcome here.” The book also depicts several same-sex couples with their children, and, according to ADF Senior Counsel Philp A. Sechler:

“Lindsey spoke out as a Christian, a mother, and a private citizen on an important issue — namely, the content and age-appropriateness of a picture book that the school planned to read to her kids and other elementary-aged children that conflicted with her family’s values and faith. Yet school officials immediately retaliated against her for expressing those views and fired her from a job at which she excelled.”