Constitutional Law

Group Urges Passage of S.D. Ballot Measure to Limit Reproductive Rights

Opponents of reproductive rights are hoping that another attempt to pass a stringent law on access to abortions will be successful on this year’s South Dakota ballot. Two years ago, the Los Angeles Times reported, voters in South Dakota rejected a ballot measure aimed at seriously limiting reproductive rights. Now another ballot initiative, Measure 1, is set to appear before voters on Election Day. The measure states that a woman could opt for an abortion in cases of rape only if the mother identifies the rapist, a DNA test proves it is his child and the procedure occurs in the first 20 weeks. The measure also applies to incest, the newspaper reported.

Jan Nicolay, former South Dakota legislator and co-chair of South Dakota for Healthy Families, told the Los Angeles Times that the new ballot measure is not much different than the one that failed in 2006. “They tried to twist it to make it seem like there are exceptions, but there are not exceptions.” Nicolay pointed to a letter from attorney’s for the state’s largest hospitals that says the ballot initiative “will require a physician to choose between possibly committing a felony or subjecting a pregnant woman to a higher degree of medical risk than what would otherwise be clinically desirable.”

The Times noted that the state already has very restrictive laws on reproductive rights and that there is only one clinic in the state that performs abortions. The proponents of the anti-reproductive rights measure say they hope it is approved by voters and then challenged in court. Leslee Unruh, head of an anti-reproductive rights group, told the newspaper that she hoped the measure, after becoming law, would wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court and result in the demise Roe v. Wade. A recent poll shows voters split on the measure.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on October 27, 2008 (boomark / email).