Federal judge blocks North Dakota's six

A federal judge has temporarily blocked a recent North Dakota law that would ban abortions as early as six weeks - the earliest prohibition in the nation - calling the measure "clearly unconstitutional" and a "troubling law."

"The United States Supreme Court has unequivocally said that no state may deprive a woman of the choice to terminate her pregnancy at a point prior to viability. North Dakota House Bill 1456 is clearly unconstitutional under an unbroken stream of United States Supreme Court authority," Judge Daniel Hovland wrote in a 22-page ruling granting a preliminary injunction.

Hovland ruled that the age of viability of a fetus can vary but that North Dakota's law, which bans abortions after the detection of a heartbeat, would decidedly prohibit the procedure before viability.

Abortion rights advocates cheered the ruling.

"Today's decision ensures for the moment that the women of North Dakota won't need to worry whether they will still have the same constitutionally protected rights as women living in other parts of the United States," said Bebe Anderson, director of the U.S. Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Red River Women's Clinic. The clinic is the state's only abortion clinic.