South Dakota Abortion Ban Rejected! And Other Good News

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The South Dakota bill that would ban all abortions except in the case of rape, incest, the threat of injury to a woman’s health or life (thanks for throwing us a bone, but no cigar) was voted down 8-1 by a state Senate committee. This surprises me a bit, since it originally passed through the SD House by a vote of 45-25. Oh, and because they already tried to pull that shit last year.

Thank the lord, though, cause I was not ready to drag myself back across the country to campaign against this bill. The saddest thing about going to South Dakota is realizing how truly impossible it is to even get an abortion. There is only one clinic in the huge, sprawling state, and it is only able to provide 800 abortions per year – they have to fly a doctor in from out of state. I was in Rapid City, with a downtown the size of an overgrown shopping mall, and I can’t even imagine being able to get EC in a timely fashion (or at all, for that matter). The one thing that was clear to me while I was there, though, was that South Dakotans were not thrilled about being drug through the whole media circus.

Damn, the so-called silent majority of abortion supporters are really kicking ass. First Wyoming rejects the “Women’s Right to Know Act” (Women’s right being the “right” to mandated humliation) and now this. And eventhough Tennessee is working on a wacky bill to require death certificates for aborted fetuses (and hence requiring women to register their abortions via public papertrail) – the TN Guerilla Women swear we need not take it seriously.

Check out the Feb. 15 post:

Let’s be clear: There is no way in hades that this absurdity of a bill stands a chance of becoming law.

Because:
It would cost the state lots of money.
It would be unconstitutional.
The Tennessee House is controlled by rational Democrats.
The Tennessee House is controlled by pro choice Democrats.
The Tennessee House is controlled by Democrats who view Stacey Campfield as a big joke.

In the view of House Judiciary Chairman Rob Briley (D), Campfield’s death certificate proposal is “’the most preposterous bill I’ve seen’ in an eight-year legislative career. ‘It is totally inconsistent with everything the law contemplates as it relates to anything close to that subject.’”

Right on!

image via feministing

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