North Dakota’s Abortion Ban Survives Trip to State’s Top Court

North Dakota’s near-total abortion ban will go into effect after challengers failed to garner enough votes at the state’s top court to overturn it.

Three of the state’s justices favored striking the measure as unconstitutionally vague but two voted to uphold it, leaving the North Dakota Supreme Court one vote shy of the 4-justice minimum required to declare a state law unconstitutional. The vote automatically reversed a lower court ruling that the law was unconstitutional, the supreme court said Nov. 21.

This was one of several cases to argue that state constitutions protected a right to abortion after the US ...