Eyes on South Dakota
The story is on the front page of the Chicago Tribune today, front and center. South Dakota is the bullseye in the target to both overturn and uphold abortion on demand in America.
The story opens with a college student working on her campus against the life protection law in the upcoming referendum.
South Dakota is a distinctly conservative state, and the vast majority of its residents will tell you they are “pro-life.”
They’ll also tell you South Dakotans prize politeness and eschew confrontation.
But Andert, a 21-year-old psychology major, is part of a campaign to overturn the nation’s toughest anti-abortion law in a statewide referendum Nov. 7. The outcome of the campaign, which dominates the pre-election landscape in South Dakota, could help determine the future of abortion rights nationwide.
Which is exactly why Planned Parenthood and NARAL and co. have thrown their finances and forces into that state to defeat it. Look at what’s at stake in South Dakota:
Supporters of the state’s near-total ban on abortion hope to use it to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. Other states are poised to enact similar laws if this vote succeeds. If it is upheld, Planned Parenthood, which runs the only abortion clinic in South Dakota, has said it will sue to block it on grounds it is unconstitutional.
“If they strike down Roe, all abortion is at risk in this country,” said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation and publisher of Ms. Magazine. “We estimate about 30 states would ban it.”
They are poised, and watching. This is huge.
“We need to protect the lives of millions of unborn children,” said state Rep. Roger Hunt, a Republican who sponsored the South Dakota ban.
It was enacted last February by a bi-partisan majority vote. Click on the abortion category over on the right to get a more complete background on this groundbreaking legislation. Or go here for the most compelling and thorough report on 33 years of abortion since Roe, and evidence of the ravages of its practice.
The Tribune article did use the ubiquitous language of the abortion movement, but that’s transparent enough. It handled the story pretty well in reporting the other side, to its credit.
Andrew Johnson, a 22-year-old senior at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, said he plans to vote “Yes” on the ban “for religious and moral reasons.”
“Also,” he said, “some supporters are women who have had abortions, and it really affected them mentally and physically.” Adoption is a better alternative, Johnson said, “and then that child will have a chance to live.”
The issue has mobilized South Dakotans who were never active before, from teenagers to octogenarians.
And though the piece refers to pro-life people as “the anti-abortion side,” it did report that they are “equally passionate” about the issue.
Church groups have been busing teenagers to the state Capitol to lobby politicians. One Baptist congregation in Rapid City has had a voter registration table at its Sunday services. And VoteYesForLife.com, the organization fighting to retain the ban, says it has “thousands” of volunteers planting lawn signs, staffing phone banks and holding house parties.
Leslee Unruh, campaign manager of VoteYesForLife.com, said the ban is essential to protect women’s health, and argues that most abortions are coerced by male partners who seek to exploit women. Unruh runs a support group for “postabortive” women, like herself, who were traumatized by the procedure.
The abortion ban so dominates the political debate in South Dakota, you’d hardly know there’s a general election on Nov. 7.
What’s not reported here is that in the March primaries in South Dakota, every single lawmaker up for re-election who did not vote for the life protection law was defeated. Every lawmaker who did support it won their race.
One more thing to point out in this Trib piece. It carries the false report that polls show the “no” side winning in public opinion.
A statewide survey by the Argus Leader newspaper and KELO-TV in July indicated 47 percent of South Dakotans were against the ban, 39 percent supported it, and 14 percent were undecided.
As reported here in the Forum, that cursory glance at the poll is inaccurate. After the real number-crunching in that convoluted poll, a 75 percent majority of the state favored this life protection law. Read all about that one here. Write letters to all the media you catch mis-reporting this thing and inform them of the truth.
And be part of history. These folks need your help to really protect women.
