South Dakota is planning to conduct a referendum for an abortion ban vote that will be on
the ballot in November. The ban, if passed, would prohibit abortion
except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to a mother's health. More importantly, it would create a vehicle for which to challenge Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that upheld a woman's right to abort.
For the past few years, South Dakota leaders in government and non-profits have been waging a battle to eliminate abortions in the state. In 2006, South Dakota voted and signed into law a bill to ban abortion in the hopes that the ban would be challenged in court and ultimately make its way up to the Supreme Court for a new abortion decision from a more conservative court.
Instead of challenging the bill and creating a chance for judicial review, pro-choice advocates challenged the legislative ban through a referendum. Residents of the state narrowly decided to reject the abortion ban by a vote of 56% to 44%, but exit polls indicated that the ban was rejected because it failed to grant any exceptions.
The new abortion ban to be voted on by the 800,000 people of South Dakota in November grants exceptions to women seeking abortions that have become pregnant through rape or incest. It also places the mother's health above her future child's, so in cases in which the mother's health is in jeopardy from the pregnancy, abortions may be conducted.
But those exceptions are hardly straight forward; the full text of the
proposed law is over 2,400 words. Citizens will be presented only a 249-word summary when they meet to vote on the measure in November and abortion-rights advocates complain the bill is oversimplified for them.
"We need to help people understand that the exceptions
are very complicated -- this is still a total ban," says Jan Nicolay,
co-chairwoman of the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, a
group that includes ministers, business organizations, Planned
Parenthood and other individuals and organizations who oppose the ban.
If the ban were to be approved, pro-choice advocates would be forced to appeal the ban to the courts. Given the conservative makeup of the current Supreme Court, it is conceivable that Roe v Wade could be overturned.