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April 2, 2008
South Dakota Abortion Ban Update
Despite the fact that South Dakota’s abortion laws are among the most restrictive in the country, the anti-choice group Vote Yes For Life filed their petition for a ban on abortion on Monday. Leslee Unruh, the executive director of Vote Yes For Life that led the group’s failed campaign to ban abortion in 2006, claims to have turned in close to 50,000 signatures.
While the near total abortion ban was rejected in 2006 by 56 percent of South Dakotans, this year’s ban would “make it a class 4 felony to perform any kind of abortion or prescribe, procure or sell drugs or any other items to induce abortion unless the exceptions applied.” From the Rapid City Journal:
… opponents of this year’s initiative say the exceptions in the proposal are too onerous and intrusive to be workable. Dr. Marvin Buehner of Rapid City, a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology, said the law would require doctors performing an abortion to collect DNA from the woman and fetal tissue, and then be responsible for the “chain of custody” to law enforcement officers. Violations could mean a Class 4 felony, which would intimidate most doctors, Buehner said.Requiring proof that a pregnancy poses a “serious risk of substantial and irreversible harm to major bodily functions” before an abortion could be performed would create “a pretty high bar,” Buehner said.
“I just don’t know any physicians who would chance that,” he said. “Women with health problems would be likely to be sent out of state.”
Buehner, board member with the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, said voters who rejected the 2006 ban send a message that Unruh and others supporting the initiative are trying to ignore.
“I think when they voted, the majority felt that ‘no’ meant ‘no’ on this,” he said. “And from my standpoint as a physician, these exceptions really don’t constitute exceptions.”
Read more here and please visit the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families and NARAL Pro-Choice South Dakota to see how you can get involved. You can also download an incredibly useful document, “Behind the Ban: Politics and South Dakota’s Abortion Ban” by clicking here.
Posted by Molly at April 2, 2008 9:58 AM