Abortion Ban Rejected
November 5, 2008
For the second election in a row, South Dakota voters rejected by a double-digit margin an attempt to ban abortion in the state.
The margin for Initiated Measure 11- a proposed law to criminalize abortion unless done in cases of rape or pregnancy or to safe the life or health of a woman- was 55-45 with 736 of 799 precincts reported early Wednesday.
That's slightly closer than the 56-44 margin that rejected a ban without exceptions in the 2006 election. Neither side in the fight, which also included an unsuccessful legislative effort in 2004, gave any indication that Tuesday's vote was the final word. "Do they look tired?" Leslee Unruh, a leading supporter of the initiative, said late Tuesday evening as she gestured toward a group of children and young adults rallying for the unsuccessful initiative.
"I don't for a minute expect it to end," Jan Nicolay, a spokesperson for the Campaign for Healthy Families, the lead group fighting the ban, said. While the 2006 debate raged around the lack of exceptions, this year's campaign centered on whether the ban would be government intrusion into the practice of medicine or simply a set of guidelines that a doctor using accepted medical standards could meet.
Unruh said opponents had created considerable confusion about what the measure would do with their focus on government interference in the practice of medicine. But she said just before returns began to roll in that she thought her side did a good job of straightening out that confusion in the final stages of the campaign.
"There was a lot of heart in this campaign," Unruh said. "The opponents with their talk of intrusion caused a lot of confusion. I know there was a lot of confusion out there." Opponents agreed that many citizens were confused at first by the initiative and that it took one-on-one contacts to erase that doubt. A number of doctors talked of their concern about the wording of the initiative.
"They know it would not allow them to practice the kind of medicine they want to practice," Casey Murschel of the initiative foes said at an early-evening rally. "This is intrusion at the highest level," said Tiffany Campbell, who appeared in ads for the anti-11 side. She and her husband said they made a decision to terminate the life of one unborn twin to assure that the other would be born healthy.
Sarah Stoesz, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota and the Dakotas, said the campaign was a grassroots effort by opponents of the ban.
She said the 2006 referred law was a wake-up call to reproductive rights forces and made them do the kind of local-level organizing that the pro-life side had been doing for the previous decade or more. In 2006, Stoesz said, "South Dakota became the epicenter for the reproductive rights movement in this country."
A University of Richmond (Va.) law professor, Carl Tobias, said that if Measure 11 did indeed fail this year, it could be a signal that South Dakota has tired of the debate. "If the 2006 ban failed and this more tolerant effort does, I don't know what would be a next step," he said.
Gerald Andrews, who attended the VoteYesForLife.com rally, said he was "praying for a victory. We really need to win this one. I think this has been the most coordinated effort I've ever seen in a political-style campaign."
The outcome of the initiative drew comments from far beyond the state's borders. Linda Coffee, a Dallas lawyer who argued the landmark Roe v. Wade case in 1973, said, "I'm glad to hear the measure was defeated."
The ban would have "threatened the lives and health of South Dakota women, and potentially set a dangerous precedent for our country,'' Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, said in a written statement. Opponents of the ban aren't concerned about women's health, Unruh said.
"They just want abortion on demand," she said. "That's their concern."
The initiative proposed to criminalize abortions - with a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and $20,000 fine - except for those done to save the life or health of a pregnant woman or performed to terminate a pregnancy that resulted from rape or incest. The scope of those exceptions was a point of contention during the campaign. A ban without rape, incest and health exceptions passed the 2006 Legislature. Gov. Mike Rounds signed it into law, but opponents circulated petitions to place it on the general election ballot where it failed. Abortion foes in South Dakota responded to that defeat by crafting Initiate Measure 11 and including the exceptions.
VoteYesForLife.com leaders argued throughout the campaign that the measure with exceptions is what South Dakota voters said they wanted. Some who voted against the 2006 ban said they could have supported a law that eliminated most abortions but allowed doctors to make decisions when a woman's health or life lay in the balance. Others who said they opposed abortion generally said they were reluctant to impose that belief on women who had become pregnant through rape or incest. Initiative 11 was aimed at winning over those camps. In the process, though, the movement split some of its past support, losing some who said the exceptions amounted to deciding that some lives were worth saving and others were expendable.
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