A Year of Change for a North Dakota Abortion Clinic

A year ago, the staff writer Emily Witt visited Fargo, North Dakota, to report on the Red River Women’s Clinic—the only abortion provider in the state. The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision had just come down, and the clinic was scrambling to move across state lines, to the adjacent city of Moorhead, Minnesota. This spring, Witt returned to talk with Tammi Kromenaker, the clinic’s director. Kromenaker says the clinic’s new home has had some notable upsides—a parking lot that shields patients from protesters, for example—but North Dakota patients are increasingly fearful as they reach out, afraid even to cross the state line into Minnesota for care. “It only takes one rogue prosecutor,” she tells Witt. “I think people know that and have it in the back of their minds.” Kromenaker herself is experiencing what she calls “survivor’s guilt,” recognizing how lucky she’s been in comparison to her peers in other conservative states. “It's just been a really hard year in a lot of ways for providers.”