North Dakota threatens Roe v. Wade

    On his second day in office, President Barack Obama reaffirmed his commitment to protecting abortion rights by marking the 36th anniversary of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. He said the ruling "stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters."
    The statement stood in stark contrast to the remarks made by former President George W. Bush exactly a year earlier when he told March for Life participants he was "proud to be standing with" them.
    But as the state of North Dakota proved yesterday, neither the new president nor Supreme Court decisions are going to hinder the progress of pro-lifers and their march toward entirely eliminating abortion rights in this country.
    In a 51-41 vote, the North Dakota House granted fertilized human eggs the same rights as human beings, ruling that "a human being includes any organism with the genome of Homo sapiens."
    State Rep. Dan Ruby (R-Minot), the bill's sponsor, argued that the legislation does not automatically ban abortion but merely defines the time at which life begins. Essentially, he asserted, the bill is completely compatible with Roe v. Wade and is "not as aggressive as the direct ban legislation that [he has] proposed in the past."
    But of course it's aggressive. Direct or indirect, the legislation challenges the very tenets of the 1973 ruling.
    Rep. Ruby is seriously fooling himself if he thinks pro-choice proponents — or really anyone — will buy this argument. The very fact that the North Dakota House defined life as beginning upon fertilization inherently bans abortion from occurring within state borders. If the Senate passes the bill, any abortion carried out within North Dakota will be considered murder.
    It could not be more simple.
    With one vote, the North Dakota House has put a bill in front of the state's Senate — which will likely vote in the next two to three weeks — that will effectively force the state government to "intrude on our most private family matters."
    But that certainly won't be the end of it. Ruby may claim the bill goes hand-in-hand with the Roe v. Wade ruling, but it is no secret that provided the Senate passes the bill, North Dakota will challenge the basic principles underlying the decision President Obama was celebrating just a month ago. It will likely cost the state millions of dollars to defend — a fact that concerned many critics of the measure.
    We at the Daily hope that it doesn't come to that. Let's hope the Senate has enough sense to see the bill for what it is: a direct threat to Roe v. Wade.