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ND Laws Concerning Life Issues
Major Abortion Legislation in North Dakota
- 1973 - After 12 weeks gestation, abortions must be performed
in a hospital.
- No abortions after
viability unless necessary to preserve the life of the mother, or there is
substantial risk that the mother's mental or physical health would be greatly impaired.
- 1975 - All abortions must be performed by licensed physicians.
- Ban on live fetal experimentation
or use for transplants.
- 1979 - All abortions must be reported to ND Health Dept.
- No abortions in state owned
or operated hospitals except to prevent the death of the mother.
- Babies surviving an abortion
must receive the same treatment as those born prematurely.
- No state or federal money
passing through a state agency or treasury can be used for any abortion except to
prevent the death of the mother.
- Health insurance coverage
for abortion requires a supplemental rider and the payment of a separate premium.
- 1981 - Two-Parent Parental Consent Law.
- 1987 - Bodies of aborted babies must be incinerated or buried.
- 1989 - A fetus of a newborn child, fetal tissue or organs, resulting
from an induced abortion, may not be used in animal or human research or experimentation
or for transplantation.
- 1991 - Informed Consent (Released from the courts March, 1994)
- 1997 - Law mandating a new and expanded informed consent brochure with
medically accurate fetal development illustrations.
- 1999 - Ban on partial-birth abortions.
- 2001 - Law mandating providing for geographically indexed materials
and fetal growth and development information.
Abortion Related Legislation
- 1973 - Conscience clause on abortion for hospitals, physicians, nurses,
and health care employees.
- 1985 - Ban on wrongful life lawsuits.
- 1987 - Crimes on fetal manslaughter and homicide.
- 1989 - Ban on school based sex-clinics.
- 1991 - Ban on school employees referring for abortion or distributing
birth control devices.
- 1997 - Forbids insurance companies from denying coverage solely
because a woman is pregnant or because a person carries a gene which may cause future
illness or disability.
- Forbids state agencies to
discriminate (in contracts, grants, or programs) against a health care institution
or private agency that refuses to provide a service which violates their religious or
moral conscience. This includes surgical or chemical abortion, assisted suicide,
and euthanasia.
- 2001 - Provides overwhelmed, panicky new mothers a safe haven for their
newborn, no questions asked; identifies a hospital as the safe haven location,
allowing newborns to get immediate proper medical care; most importantly helps prevent
infanticide.
- 2003 - Ban on Human Cloning
Major Anti-Euthanasia Legislation
- 1989 - Presumption that nutrition and hydration be given to incompetent
patients except under very limited circumstances (e.g.: cannot assimilate, causes harm)
- 1991 - Ban on assisted suicide.
- 1997 - Endangering the life or health of a disabled adult or vulnerable
elderly adult became a class B felony.
- Living Will amendments
throughout the years providing for: 1)The maintenance and transfer of patients
when physician refuses life preserving treatment or nutrition and hydration, 2)Tightening
the definition of terminal condition to preclude Alzheimer's disease and other
chronic conditions.
- 1999 - Civil remedies and suspension or revocation of license of a health
care provider who assists in a suicide.
- 2001 - Allows advanced health care directives to be verified by a notary
or two witnesses. It also recognizes the use of other advanced directives that comply
with our existing state law.
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