In the past couple of years, so many states have passed laws restricting women’s rights it seems they’re competing for the dubious honor of being the worst place for women to live. Texas rejected federal family-planning funds and is busily whittling away subsidized contraception access for poor women. Virginia passed a series of regulations on abortion clinics aimed at putting them out of business. The governor of Mississippi has been bragging about ending legal abortion in his state. In this new year, though, another state has risen to the top of the competitive field: North Dakota.

Anti-abortion activists and legislators in North Dakota have been quite busy. Inspired by a Mississippi law, the North Dakota Legislature is considering a measure that could close the state’s only clinic—the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo—by requiring that it employ only doctors who have privileges allowing them to admit patients to a local hospital. Because the clinic is often the subject of harassment and threats, most of the clinic’s doctors come from out of town to perform abortions—two are from Minneapolis and one is from Colorado—so they lack these privileges. The chances of the doctors getting the privileges now are low, because hospitals don’t want to draw the same protests. Militants created an environment of intimidation, and now the legislature is exploiting it.

A state representative, Bette Grande, claims that the requirement promotes women’s safety. She believes medication abortions, which require that women pick up medication at a clinic but take it at home, are unsafe: “How do you get follow-up care when you are in the middle of the procedure?” Turns out a quick Google search would answer her question. The FDA recommends that women who take the abortion pill return two weeks later for a follow-up and to call their doctor from home if they start to show unexpected negative symptoms. Which is true for any other drug taken at home.

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