Looking back at impossible choices and the impact of abortion policy in North Dakota and beyond

By: Mary Steurer, North Dakota Monitor

June 27, 2025

Even before federal abortion-rights protections were overturned three years ago, a Fargo mother says she had to travel hundreds of miles and across state lines to end a life-threatening pregnancy.

Randi Lamoureux, an educator and business owner, became pregnant with her son Lammy in 2017. At 19 weeks, he was diagnosed with a severe fetal abnormality called DiGeorge syndrome. Lamoureux’s doctor told her that both she and Lammy were at risk for cardiac arrest if she stayed pregnant.

Lamoureux said she had to travel more than 300 miles for care at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

By the time she could make the trip, she was almost too far along under that state’s law.

“That was literally the absolute last day that I could get it in Minnesota,” she said. “More than 24 hours later, I would have had to have gone to another state.”

Lamoureux said the weeks before and after were full of devastating decisions she never imagined having to make. 

“Do we hold our baby? Do we take pictures of our baby? Do we cremate him?” she said. “Those are things that nobody else should have a say in, ever.”

Though Lamoureux, born and raised in Grafton, is conservative and deeply religious, she said she wants other North Dakotans to see abortion not as a political or religious issue, but as a personal and private choice. No one can understand that decision until they’re faced with it, she said.

“I wish I could have invited Kevin Cramer into the hospital room when we had to make decisions,” she said of the U.S. senator from North Dakota.

Today, Lamoureux lives in Fargo with her husband and 5-year-old daughter. She said she now considers abortion-rights advocacy part of her life’s purpose.

“I don’t want my 5-year-old daughter or anybody else’s daughters or anybody else to have to go through what I went through,” she said.

Earlier this week, Lamoureux traveled to D.C. with a group of other women who have been impacted by state-level abortion policy. They were invited to share their stories at a summit organized by Free and Just, an abortion-rights group, to mark the third anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which gave rise to a patchwork of state abortion laws across the country. 

As part of the trip, Lamoureux said she went to the hill and met with members of Congress.

She said it felt good to share her story, but she can’t help but find it unfair that women like her have to recount such difficult experiences to try and shift policy. 

“To me, it’s like: Why? Why do we have to justify this? Why do we have to share our stories with anyone?” she said. “However, it’s the reality, and our stories are what make change.”

Lammy is still part of daily life for Lamoureux and her family. She said her parents recently visited his grave in Rochester.

“They called us, and we said a prayer together as a family,” Lamoureux said. “My parents left two little trucks for him and a sunflower.”

Under a district court ruling last fall, abortion is legal in North Dakota through fetal viability, thought to be around 24 weeks, but no clinics provide abortion care in the state. 

North Dakota had adopted a law in 2023 banning all abortions except when the pregnancy poses a serious health risk to the life of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest in the first six weeks of pregnancy. That policy was struck down as unconstitutional last year by a District Court judge. The ruling was appealed to the North Dakota Supreme Court, which has yet to make a final decision in the case.

During the 2025 session, Rep. Eric Murphy, R-Grand Forks, introduced a bill he said sought to strike a compromise between reproductive freedom and regulation. It would have allowed women to receive abortions for any reason through week 15 of pregnancy, while medical professionals would decide whether to allow later term abortions on a case-by-case basis. The House overwhelmingly rejected the policy.

In a 2023 ruling striking down a previous state abortion ban, the North Dakota Supreme Court found that women have a fundamental right to seek abortions for health reasons. The justices also found that the state has a compelling interest in protecting unborn life. 

In a January opinion in the lawsuit, the state Supreme Court indicated that it may have to decide how to balance these interests as it considers the pending appeal over the state’s abortion law. It takes a fourth-fifths vote by the high court to declare a law unconstitutional in North Dakota.