The resolution was passed on Friday and will appear on nextyear’s ballot.
It will state: “The inalienable right to life of every humanbeing at any stage of development must be recognized anddefended.”
North Dakota has recently passed several anti-abortion bills.Just last week, it adopted a law making abortion illegal once afetal heartbeat, which develops as early as six weeks into apregnancy, is detected.
Another outlaws abortions in case a fetus has a genetic defect, such as Down syndrome, making NorthDakota the only state in the US to prohibit the procedure in suchcircumstances.
A third piece of legislation passed bans all abortions after 20weeks of pregnancy and makes it mandatory for all doctorsperforming abortion to have admitting privileges at a localhospital.
The only law that failed to pass was the ‘personhood’ bill,which wanted to include that life begins at conception in thestate’s constitution, without requiring the public to vote on theissue.
Pro-choice activists criticize the new anti-abortion laws,arguing that they violate the US Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wadedecision, which legalized abortions until the fetus is consideredviable, at around 22-24 weeks into a pregnancy.
However, Republican Senator Margaret Sitte, who introduced the‘personhood’ resolution, pointed out that the main purpose of it isto “be a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade,” she told AP.According to Sitte, the inspiration came from the heart and thelanguage from Wikipedia. “There was no grandiose plan,”Sitte told AP.
Pro-life advocates also argue that they want to shut down Fargo– North Dakota’s only abortion clinic.
Previously North Dakota’s anti-abortion caucus was the oneresponsible for introducing bills aimed to limit the procedure, butit has recently disintegrated over disagreements about whatapproach to take, Democrat Tim Mathern told AP. The group was infavor of a more slow approach at trying to put an end to allabortions.
Without the caucus in charge, more extreme pro-life activiststook up the torch and introduced bills written by out-of-stateorganizations or even the internet.
"None of the bills originated in North Dakota. All the billscame from out of state, every single one of them," said stateadvocacy counsel for the New York-based Center for ReproductiveRights Jordan Goldberg.
Republican Kathy Hawken argues that North Dakota’s residentswould prefer lawmakers to concentrate on other more pressingissues, such as taxes and education.
“This is not coming from here, from the people of our state.It's coming from out of state,” she said. “We're clearly notthe brightest bulbs in the bunch if we take a legal medicalprocedure and try and make it illegal.”
North Dakota’s Governor Jack Dalrymple does not approveresolutions, but he does need to sign all the other anti-abortionsbills. So far, with threats of possible expensive lawsuits againstthe new laws, Dalrymple did indicate whether or not he will besupporting the bills.
