By: Mary Steurer
BISMARCK, N.D. (North Dakota Monitor) – A new training commissioned by the North Dakota Legislature to address confusion about the state’s abortion laws is now available on the North Dakota Board of Medicine’s website.
The course covers North Dakota statutes including the state’s near-total abortion ban, a law criminalizing partial-birth abortions and the Abortion Control Act, which establishes other abortion-related restrictions. The training also tests respondents’ knowledge with a series of clinical vignettes that apply the laws in real-world scenarios. Upon completing the course, doctors get a digital certificate.
Lawmakers in 2025 ordered the training through House Bill 1511, which included an appropriation of $50,000.
At the time, the state faced a lawsuit over its abortion ban, which makes it a crime for doctors to perform abortions except in cases of rape and incest when the pregnancy is less than six weeks old, or when the pregnancy poses a serious physical health threat to the life of the mother. The plaintiffs — which included reproductive health care doctors and an abortion clinic — alleged the law, among other things, was too vague for doctors to understand.
The idea was that the mandatory course could help iron out misunderstandings about the restrictions.
“House Bill 1511 would afford an opportunity for (obstetrician-gynecologists) to obtain accurate information alleviating undue fear and anxiety about criminal prosecution practicing within the confines of the current statute,” Jerry Obritsch, a Bismarck OB/GYN who has since retired, said in written testimony in support of the training. Obritsch also testified as an expert witness for the state in the lawsuit over the ban.
Under House Bill 1511, doctors may not perform abortions unless they have taken the course within the previous two years, except in the case of a “medical emergency.”
Doctors who violate this requirement are guilty of a class A misdemeanor, though the North Dakota Board of Medicine does not track who completes the course, Executive Director Sandra DePountis said in an email to the North Dakota Monitor. She said it’s the responsibility of individual doctors to take the training and to keep their certificates of completion on file.
Doctors self-report that they are in compliance with state-mandated continuing education requirements when they apply to renew their licenses, according to DePountis.
The course, which went live on Jan. 5, was developed by a committee of University of North Dakota staff members, spokesperson David Dodds said. The committee was composed of experts at the university’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences — including two obstetrician-gynecologists — a law professor and an instructional designer.
By law, the training also required the final approval of the North Dakota Attorney General’s Office.
UND as of Feb. 26 had spent $4,825 of the available $50,000 on the training, Dodds said. Of that, $2,500 went to the university’s Teaching Transformation and Development Academy. The other $2,325 went to obstetrician-gynecology consultants.
The $45,175 not spent by the university may be used for future revisions to the course, according to Dodds. House Bill 1511 requires the training to “be updated periodically to reflect state law.”
The training by law had to be produced by an organization that employs an obstetrician-gynecologist with at least 25 years of experience practicing medicine in North Dakota.
The North Dakota Office of Management and Budget chose UND as the contractor for the course without a competitive bidding process. North Dakota law allows the state to forgo competitive bidding if the contractor is another government agency.
Dennis Lutz, chair of the university’s Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, was among the experts who worked on the course.
Even though the legislative discussion on House Bill 1511 indicates the training was mostly made with OB/GYNs in mind, Lutz said any physician that deals with pregnancy— including family doctors and emergency room doctors — is expected to take the course.
Lutz said he hadn’t yet seen the finished product, but described the process of creating it as fairly straightforward. He said that the Attorney General’s Office only suggested two or three adjustments to the training upon review.
“The committee made every effort to comply with the requests of the Attorney General,” he said.
House Bill 1511 passed the Legislature by votes of more than two-thirds in both chambers.
It was opposed by the North Dakota Board of Medicine and the North Dakota Medical Association, which said the law would only add red tape to the licensure process. Several North Dakota OB/GYNs also testified against the bill, stating that more education couldn’t fix what they characterized as inherent problems with North Dakota’s abortion restrictions.
The abortion ban was left standing in November after a ruling by the North Dakota Supreme Court. Three of the five justices found that the law is unconstitutionally vague. However, in North Dakota, it requires a vote of at least four of the justices to declare a law unconstitutional.
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