On the outskirts of rural
Menno, S.D., past acres of sunflowers, there’s a wooden sign nailed
to a post. It reads: “Abortion, America’s #1 Killer.” Similar signs
dot roads throughout this conservative state, which is populated by
775,000 people and where just one clinic, based in Sioux Falls,
performs about 800 abortions a year. Depending on the upcoming
election, the state’s lone clinic might be forced to close.
In February 2006, South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds, R,
signed a law outlawing abortion with no exceptions for rape, incest
or a woman’s health. It is the most restrictive abortion ban in the
country, though the sale of emergency contraception —
sometimes called Plan B — is still allowed. Following the
legislation’s passage, a coalition of local feminist and equal
rights groups decided to try to repeal the ban by placing a
referendum on the Nov. 7 ballot. In just nine weeks, over 1,200
volunteers gathered 40,000 signatures on petitions — double
the number needed — from every county in the state. Now, the
voters of South Dakota will decide whether to uphold or repeal the
ban.
Their effort has significance that reaches beyond
South Dakota. If the referendum fails to strike down the ban, the
law, which is not yet being enforced and which the state’s attorney
general has said is probably unconstitutional, will likely head
straight for the U.S. Supreme Court, making it the most direct
legal challenge of Roe v. Wade in over 30 years. A vote to retain
the ban could also fuel momentum in 12 different states that have
abortion bans pending, including Idaho and Utah. This was in part
the South Dakota Legislature’s stated intent — to spur a
national movement to ban abortion.
“The law itself is
absolutely fantastic,” says Jim Sedlack, vice president of the
American Life League, a group that believes all forms of
contraception kill babies. “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
passed.”
History, however, reveals that banning abortion
has never prevented women from getting rid of unwanted pregnancies.
For the wealthy and the well-connected, a ban in South Dakota would
simply mean a long drive to Denver or Omaha to receive the
procedure. For the poor, a continued ban on most abortions will
mean more unwanted children or an increase in dangerous “coat
hanger” abortions. The Rosebud Reservation in south-central South
Dakota, for example, is the second-poorest county in America, with
an average annual income of just over $7,000. Statistics here can
be shocking; for example, 80 percent of female high school seniors
report that they’ve been raped. The Legislature maintains that rape
and incest victims still have the benefit of emergency
contraception. Nicole Witt of the White Buffalo Calf Woman Society,
Inc., which runs the reservation’s shelter for battered women,
based in Mission, S.D., says that is simply absurd.
“We
have children — girls 10, 11, 12 years old — being
raped by their uncles and cousins,” says Witt angrily. “Most of the
time they don’t tell anyone; it only comes out when they’re
pregnant. They’re so traumatized. Forcing them to have a child is
almost like punishing them for what happened to them.”
Just days before the election, it’s hard to predict how South
Dakotans are likely to vote. The most recent reliable polling data,
released in late July by the Sioux Falls Argus
Leader, found that 47 percent of people surveyed said
they would vote to overturn the abortion ban. More recently, a
group of 89 board-certified obstetricians and gynecologists across
the state criticized the ban as harming “medical decision-making.”
But anti-abortion advocates have been organizing around
this issue for 20 years. Pastors, armed with voter guides developed
by pro-life groups, have been preaching from the pulpit, telling
their congregations to vote to uphold the ban. Native Americans,
with 8.3 percent of the state’s population, are considered a
crucial voting bloc, and there is a strong Catholic, Episcopal and
evangelical presence on nearly every reservation.
Back in
Menno, an hour’s drive from Sioux Falls, at the local pharmacy,
employee Sharon Sayler, 64, sums up conflict over the issue that I
heard while doing interviews with women and men throughout the
state.
“Just to have an abortion for convenience I feel
is wrong,” says Sayler, a regular churchgoer. “But I feel if the
mother’s life is in danger, or if rape or incest caused (the
pregnancy), I believe abortion should be legal for that.” When
asked how she’ll vote in November, she slowly shakes her head; then
she says she plans to vote against the abortion ban.
Rebecca Clarren is a contributor to Writers on the Range,
a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She is
a writer and reporter in Portland,
Oregon.
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