South Dakota's Abortion Ban Challenged by Voter Referendum

[Frodo]

It seems they finally got the memo:

Referendum Campaign in South Dakota Challenges Abortion Ban

By REUTERS
Published: March 24, 2006
Filed at 1:34 p.m. ET

SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota (Reuters)- Abortion-rights supporters launched a referendum drive on Friday to overturn a a new South Dakota abortion law that was designed to challenge the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing the practice.

The newly formed coalition South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families said it would try to collect thousands of signatures aimed at giving voters the chance to pass judgment on what it called ``the nation's most extreme abortion law.''

``This law clearly endangers the health of women in South Dakota and violates the right of women and families to make private, personal health-care decisions,'' the group said in a statement.

South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds, a Republican, signed the law March 6. The measure bans nearly all abortions, even in cases of incest and rape, and says that if a woman's life is in jeopardy, doctors must try to save the life of the fetus as well as the woman. It would punish doctors who perform an abortion with a $5,000 fine and five years in prison.
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This is a welcome change, and if it continues it will benefit the abortion rights movement in the long-run.  It seems the eventual conservative takeover of the Supreme Court and the prospect of the inevitable overturning of Roe v Wade (and Casey vs Planned Parenthood) has finally convinced abortion rights activists to actually adopt the tactics that pro-life activists have been using for decades by focusing on the art of persuading not judges or justices but legislators and ordinary citizens, going door-to-door connecting with ordinary Americans instead of focusing on the lawyers and the courtroom as has been their wont. 

[Democratic Hawk]

I can understand this but it coud very well be that they represent the liberal extreme, just as the Ban, as it stands, represent the conservative extreme (well, not quite since it does, at least, permit abortion in the case of the life of the mother)

Dave

[Mr. Paleoconservative]

Anybody can launch a referendum drive, and just about anybody with enough cash can get it to the ballot.

When this gets to the ballot, however, it will go down in flames...

[dazzleman]

The abortion rights people have little to lose by going for the referendum.

If it wins, they dodge a bullet.  And they don't have to have Roe vs. Wade tested in the federal courts, where it could possibly lose, especially if there are more Supreme Court vacancies during the period that it is making its way through the courts.

If it loses, they can still go their litigious route and challenge it in federal court.

Clearly, this law is a direct challenge to Roe vs. Wade, and the fact that they're going for a referendum shows that they can't be 100% confident of prevailing in the courts.

I don't think it represents a sea change in the abortion movement, however.  I have no doubt that they'll go right back to their old tactics if the referendum fails.

As far as convincing people rather than judges of their views on abortion, those people are about 30 years late.

[Bono]

GOing through the democratic route.
I'm surprised to say the least.

[MODU]

Didn't take long for the battle to begin.    Can't wait to hear the arguments.