South Dakota’s Republican-led Legislature is using resolutions and bills to try to fend off a proposed ballot initiative asking voters to decide whether to protect abortion rights in the state constitution.
Backers of the initiative need the validated signatures of 35,017 registered voters to put it on the November ballot, and say they’ve already collected more than 50,000 signatures for validation.
GOP legislative leaders in recent years have tried unsuccessfully multiple times to tighten the rules for initiated petitions, but are trying again on the abortion issue.
Bills introduced this year include one allowing individuals who’ve signed petitions to have their signatures removed if they feel they were misled, and another creating an official informational video about the state’s abortion laws.
The South Dakota House and Senate this week overwhelmingly approved a resolution rebuking the ballot measure as too extreme.
The resolution says the initiative “would severely restrict any future enactment of protections for a pregnant woman, her child, and her healthcare providers,” while failing to protect human life, a pregnant woman, and the child she bears.
Dakotans for Health co-founder Rick Weiland says the GOP efforts threaten South Dakota’s tradition of direct democracy, and he strongly rejects the “too extreme” claim.
A near-total ban on abortions took effect when the U-S Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade and Weiland says the proposed 3-paragraph addition to the state constitution essentially reinstates the Roe v Wade limits.
It bans the state from regulating abortion in the first trimester and allows regulations for the second trimester “only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.”
The state could prohibit third-trimester abortions, “except when abortion is necessary, in the medical judgment of the woman’s physician, to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman.”
Seven states have voted on abortion rights-related ballot measures since the Supreme Court acted and all 7 have passed