North Dakota abortion clinic fundraiser tops $500K

The last abortion clinic in North Dakota has raised more than $500,000 to move to neighboring Minnesota and continue operating.

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday morning, it activated North Dakota’s anti-abortion trigger law. Performing an abortion will be illegal in North Dakota in 30 days and punishable by up to five years in prison.

Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, North Dakota

For 20 years, only a single abortion clinic has operated in North Dakota: Red River Women’s Clinic. The clinic is in Fargo, North Dakota’s most populous city, but it sits in the far eastern part of the state, less than a mile from the Red River that forms the state border with Minnesota.

Clinic owner Tammi Kromenaker said she’d secured a location across the river in Moorhead, Minn., but wasn’t sure how to fund it.

A GoFundMe was set up for the clinic with an initial goal of $20,000. By Saturday night, more than $530,000 had been raised.

Red River Women’s Clinic is the only abortion provider across a 220-mile radius, with the nearest current clinic in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Another clinic was also about 230 miles away in Sioux Falls, S.D., but South Dakota also had a trigger law that went into effect immediately on Friday.

In Minnesota, abortion is a protected right in the state constitution.

With News Wire Services