View the petition for Measure 11 as a PDF.
Sioux Falls, SD - In the last few weeks leading up to Election Day, abortion rights groups are campaigning hard to inform voters the reasons why Initiated Measure 11 goes too far.
Initiated Measure 11 is a purposed ban on all abortions performed without medical reasons, but its tight and exact wording gives women little room for personal choice or health and could actually endanger them, said Chris Cassidy, media coordinator for the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, the main abortion rights group opposing the ban.
In 2006, exit polls in South Dakota found those who voted against the abortion ban cited the bill's lack of exceptions as the reason for the bill's 12-percent defeat. The new bill permits abortion exceptions in instances of rape and incest or if the mother's life or health is endangered.
Megan Maas, field coordinator for the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, said on the Nov. 4 ballot there will be six short paragraphs explaining the bill's intent and the opposition's position. There will also be a paragraph written by the attorney general stating it is possible the law will be constitutionally challenged and taxpayers would have to pay the state's legal fees.
"That's why we're telling people to read the so-called exceptions," she said. "It's not just a South Dakota issue - it's a national issue."
Cassidy said the procedure of seeking an abortion for rape or incest is insensitive and unrealistic because incidents must be reported immediately, which most rape or incest victims don't do.
Waiting to report rape or incest eliminates the option of using a morning-after pill as a legal contraception against pregnancy.
"Oftentimes, it takes until they show to come to terms with what's happened to them and to seek out services," he said.
The bill states a DNA test must be taken of the fetus and the mother in order for an abortion to be approved.
"Essentially, medicinal abortions are out because there's no way to get a DNA sample from a medicinal abortion," he said. "The only option left for rape or incest is the more invasive abortion."
Cassidy said a variety of medical conditions were omitted and pointed out the bill's stated exceptions don't provide for the mental health of the mother, nor does it consider endangerment of minor organs.
"If a woman has breast cancer, she couldn't get chemotherapy until that cancer has metastasized to her brain, heart or liver, unless you consider the breast a major bodily organ," he said. "There's so much vague language, it can only (lead to) possible problems. It gives local prosecutors all kinds of room for abuse at their discretion."
The ban contains no exception for fatal fetal anomalies, so women are still expected to carry the body to term and give birth to a body.
"Section 18 has slipped under the radar," Cassidy said. "If a woman has an abortion for any reason under the measure, the state would seize her medical records and the only thing missing would be her name. This has the power to make a woman who has an abortion for incest a pariah. It's once more incentive to carry that pregnancy to term and live with the result of the victimization."
Cassidy was also concerned with a situation in which an older man seduces a woman as young as 16, South Dakota's age of consent. Any sexual relations the two have would be legal and cannot, under any circumstances, be counted as rape.
Currently, there are no doctors performing solely abortions in South Dakota. Doctors are flown into the one city with a clinic for non-medical abortion, and high-risk OB-GYNs perform them upon medical necessity.
Initiated Measure 11 would effectively end all abortions in South Dakota performed by doctors.
"Once you read the fine print, you start to realize there's no way any doctor would be wiling to risk 10 years in prison and losing their medical license," Cassidy said. "This will stop all abortions in South Dakota. A high-risk OB-GYN said he nor any other doctor will perform abortions because he could go to prison.
"Voters need to be educated to make an informed decision. Twenty-five hundred words on one page are incredibly vague."
kiahhaslett@dailynebraskan.com
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