South Dakota's Abortion Ban Showdown

By Rebecca Clarren, Ms. Magazine. Posted October 20, 2006.

Sioux Falls, SD -- College student Dena Gleason, 24, squints at the address on the blue wooden home with the two-car garage, then strolls resolutely toward the front door, armed with an open smile and a clipboard. The smell of freshly mowed grass clings to the thick evening air of midsummer, and the American flag on the porch droops in the heat.

This neighborhood, with its manicured lawns and tree-lined streets, is fit for a Norman Rockwell painting, but to Gleason, a senior at South Dakota State in Brookings, it's simply the staging ground for the most important social battle she's faced in her lifetime.

She's taken the semester off school and given up two jobs in order to gather tons of signatures and talk to hundreds of people, trying to convince them that a vote No on Referred Law 6 this November is critical for protecting women's rights. In February and March 2006, the state legislature of South Dakota passed, and Gov. Mike Rounds signed, a bill to outlaw abortion in the state.

With no exceptions for rape, incest or a woman's health--only to "prevent the death" of a pregnant woman--it is the most draconian abortion ban in the country. South Dakota is a conservative, sparsely populated place--known for its Great Plains, Black Hills and Badlands--where abortion is already so constrained that there is only one clinic for its 775,000 residents. The state's antiabortion groups thought it was a perfect place to launch a further attack, but despite the legislative victory they have an all-out battle on their hands: The ban's passage has spurred thousands of state residents such as Gleason--many of them political naifs--to action.

"I never thought this would be something I'd have to do. To go out and defend women's rights in South Dakota and, the way it looks now, in the nation," says Gleason, her voice rising to fill the quiet of the neighborhood. "We shouldn't have to fight for this."

Following the legislation's passage, a coalition of feminist, reproductive-rights and civil-liberties groups formed the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families to ask that voters repeal the ban through a referendum on the November ballot. In just nine and a half weeks, more than 1,200 volunteers gathered over 38,000 signatures--double the number needed--from every county in the state. Besides scores of citizen volunteers, the campaign has attracted a number of prominent South Dakota leaders, including such unexpected supporters as former state Republican lawmaker Jan Nicolay and Maria Bell, a Catholic obstetrician.

The ban is about more than one state's law: If the ballot measure doesn't succeed in striking it down, the law will inevitably land on the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court. There, with moderate Sandra Day O'Connor having been replaced by ultraconservative Samuel Alito, a decision to uphold the ban could reverse Roe v. Wade. This, no doubt, was the legislature's intent, and with a reversal of Roe, experts believe abortion might be eventually outlawed in as many as 30 states.

"The South Dakota law itself is absolutely fantastic," says Jim Sedlak, vice president of the American Life League, a group that believes the birth control pill acts as a "chemical abortion." "There are many groups that have waited for this to happen and this is a major step forward. This is the kind of law we have been fighting for since Roe v. Wade was decided."

The national implications have created a shock wave of concern. The Internet is thick with ads for bumper stickers and T-shirts emblazoned with such phrases as "South Dakota, The Wire Hanger State."

A comment by Cecelia Fire Thunder, the embattled president of South Dakota's Oglala Sioux Tribe, that she would establish an abortion clinic on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where state law has little jurisdiction, made headlines around the country. Lurking beneath the legislation is an even deeper attack on women's reproductive lives. "Right-to-life" groups in South Dakota, funded in large part by federal grants provided by the Bush administration for abstinence-only education, are pushing a conservative agenda that aims to strip away not only access to abortion, but to sex education and birth control.

"This is about an ill wind that is beginning to blow in S.D. and will ultimately blow across the country unless stopped," says Sarah Stoesz, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood in South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota. "I view the South Dakota campaign we're currently mounting as a first step to significantly fight back against this political movement."

See more stories tagged with: abortion, pro-choice, south, dakota, ban, election06

Rebecca Clarren is an investigative journalist based in Portland, Ore.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from Rights and Liberties! Sign up now »