SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (ABP) — Voters in South Dakota overturned the nation's most stringent abortion ban Nov. 7 — 55 percent to 45 percent. Supporters of the ban had hoped to use it to challenge the 33-year-old Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
Mike Rounds, South Dakota's Republican governor, signed the act into law March 6. Called Referred Law 6, or the “Women's Health and Human Life Protection Act,” it prohibited abortions during all stages of pregnancy and in cases of rape and incest. Although it offered no exceptions for mothers in poor health, the ban did allow abortion if the mother's life was threatened.
State legislators passed the measure last spring thinking court litigation from opponents would force the U.S. Supreme Court to reevaluate its 1973 abortion decision. Instead, opponents gathered enough signatures to hold a statewide referendum on the measure, effectually letting voters decide the outcome.
Ban opponents said it seriously endangered the health of women. Some doctors said it would affect their ability to treat pregnant women for serious illnesses like diabetes and cancer.
Supporters said the ban did not prevent emergency morning-after contraceptives, which are becoming available over the counter. They said abortion was being used too often as a form of retroactive birth control at the state's one abortion clinic, located in Sioux Falls. The clinic performs roughly 800 abortions a year.
Jeff Carr, chief operating officer of the evangelical social justice group Sojourners/Call to Renewal, said the results don't necessarily mean conservatives aren't concerned about abortion, but it means they want to address its root cause — unwanted pregnancy.
“In South Dakota, clearly the abortion law was really very strict,” he said. “When 60 percent of women [nationwide] get abortions for economic reasons, it seems to me that there are some really important decisions that Congress could make to really reduce the number of abortions without criminalizing women.”
Similarly, Eric McFadden, field director for Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, said Catholic conservatives “do not want to stand for abortion,” but they believe criminalization is not the answer. He said election results in other states, like wins for pro-life governors, show that people have begun to seek solutions to unwanted pregnancies instead of blindly legislating against abortion.
“What we saw was that when these issues were talked about, like unwanted abortions, [candidates] were very popular when thinking of ways to actually address the problem of abortion,” he said.
Still, the overturned ban dealt a blow to conservatives, who had raised $2 million to defend it. Thomas Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, thanked pro-lifers in South Dakota who “worked tirelessly to defend” the abortion ban. He also called on them to pray for additional energy in campaigning against abortion.
“These results should confirm the resolve of all pro-lifers that we must redouble our efforts to protect all innocent human life,” he said in a statement following the vote. “While South Dakotans fought valiantly to defend their babies, we once again witnessed an almost total lack of support from the national leadership in addressing this foundational issue that defines our nation's future.”
Human Life International is the world's largest pro-life, pro-family human rights organization, with over 90 affiliates in 75 countries around the world.
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