An anti-abortion group in South Dakota has sued to remove an abortion rights item from the November ballot.
In its complaint filed on Thursday, the Life Defense Fund accused the measure’s proponents of multiple wrongdoings, including fraudulent signatures and fraud. The group wants to nullify or invalidate the initiative.
In May, Secretary of State Monae Johnson approved Dakotans for Health’s item for the November 5 general election ballot. To qualify for the ballot item, supporters submitted approximately 54,000 signatures. They needed approximately 35,000 signatures. Johnson’s staff determined that around 85% of signatures were valid based on a random sample.
The Life Defense Fund said Dakotans for Health failed to provide a required affidavit for petition circulators’ domicile, and petitioners failed to deliver a required circulator handout and left petition sheets unattended. The Life Defense Fund also declared hundreds of additional signatures invalid, alleging that petitioners misled individuals about what they were signing. “The public should carefully assess the reliability of Dakotan for Health’s comments. In the end, the Court will decide whether such illegal activity will result in the proposal being placed on the ballot,” Life Defense Fund attorney Sara Frankenstein wrote in an email Monday.
Dakotans for Health described the Life Defense Fund’s action as “a last-ditch effort to undermine the democratic process.”
“They’ve tried everything, including the kitchen sink, to keep voters from voting this November. “We are confident that the people of South Dakota, not the politicians, will be able to make this decision in November,” co-founder Rick Weiland said in a statement Friday.
The legislation would prohibit the state from regulating “a pregnant woman’s abortion decision and its implementation” in the first trimester, but it would permit second-trimester controls “only in ways that are reasonably related to the pregnant woman’s physical health.”
The constitutional amendment would allow the state to limit or prohibit abortion in the third trimester, “except when abortion is necessary, in the medical judgment of the woman’s physician, to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman.”
South Dakota forbids abortion as a felony offense, except to preserve the mother’s life, under a trigger law that went into effect in 2022, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling, which abolished the constitutional right to abortion under Roe v. Wade.
Earlier this year, the Republican-controlled South Dakota Legislature expressed resistance to the measure. The Legislature approved an official resolution condemning the plan and established legislation allowing petition signers to withdraw their signatures from initiative petitions. The latter is unlikely to have an impact on the measure that will be presented to voters.
The Life Defense Fund also wants to prohibit Dakotans for Health and its employees from sponsoring or circulating petitions or serving on ballot initiative committees for the next four years. The constitutional amendment would allow the state to limit or prohibit abortion in the third trimester, “except when abortion is necessary, in the medical judgment of the woman’s physician, to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman.”
South Dakota forbids abortion as a felony offense, except to preserve the mother’s life, under a trigger law that went into effect in 2022, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling, which abolished the constitutional right to abortion under Roe v. Wade.
Earlier this year, the Republican-controlled South Dakota Legislature expressed resistance to the measure. The Legislature approved an official resolution condemning the plan and established legislation allowing petition signers to withdraw their signatures from initiative petitions. The latter is unlikely to have an impact on the measure that will be presented to voters.
The Life Defense Fund also wants to prohibit Dakotans for Health and its employees from sponsoring or circulating petitions or serving on ballot initiative committees for the next four years. South Dakota is one of four states, along with Colorado, Florida, and Maryland, where voters will decide whether to entrench abortion rights in their state constitutions in November. Similar questions are being added in seven additional states through petition drives.
Since the United States Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, which terminated the nationwide right to abortion two years ago, there have been seven statewide abortion-related ballot issues, with abortion-rights activists winning all of them.
Source: apnews.com