By Michael Pauley
One frustrating aspect of South Dakota politics is that voters are often asked to decide on ballot measures that contain ambiguous or misleading language. Citizens are usually “coached” on how they should vote with a torrent of campaign ads.
The normal way to enact laws begins in the legislature, where a bill must survive an adversarial process. Committees of lawmakers scrutinize the wording, hear testimony from people on both sides of the issue, and often amend bills to fix problems and improve outcomes. Does this process guarantee that bad laws will never be enacted? Clearly not, but it does erect some useful barriers to prevent the worst ideas from becoming law. Ballot measures seldom receive this level of scrutiny, and that should worry us.
South Dakotans will soon decide the fate of Amendment G, a radical proposal to insert a “right to abortion” into the state constitution. If Amendment G was introduced as a bill in the legislature, it would struggle to earn even a dozen votes among our 105 lawmakers because elected officials on both sides of the abortion issue would balk at its extreme consequences. The devil is truly found in the details of this measure.
Let’s consider the first sentence:
“Before the end of the first trimester, the State may not regulate a pregnant woman’s abortion decision and its effectuation, which must be left to the judgment of the pregnant woman.”
The first thing to notice here is that the words “may not regulate” are absolute, allowing no exceptions. Imagine a proposal that said, “the State may not regulate a person’s decision to own and operate a motor vehicle.” Most people would immediately recognize the danger: no speed limits, no traffic rules, no ability to prohibit drunk driving. Our state’s roadways would become the lawless Wild West.
Amendment G endangers women’s health by bringing the Wild West to our abortion laws. Health and safety standards for abortion clinics would be thrown out because such rules would be regulating the “effectuation” of abortions, and the amendment prohibits that. Any requirement that a licensed physician perform an abortion would also be deemed unconstitutional.
Our state’s informed consent laws, which require that women be made aware of the risks of abortion and counseled about alternatives, would be discarded. Laws to prevent coerced abortions would also be unenforceable, thus allowing women and girls to be forced into unwanted abortions. Amendment G sacrifices women’s health in the name of advancing the abortion industry’s extreme agenda.
Let’s now consider the second sentence of the abortion amendment:
“After the end of the first trimester and until the end of the second trimester, the State may regulate the pregnant woman’s abortion decision and its effectuation only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.”
The second trimester ends at about 27-28 weeks, which is well past the point where babies are “viable,” meaning they can survive outside the womb. Under Amendment G, these late-term abortions can be regulated “only” to protect the physical health of the woman—not the health of the baby. The preborn girl or boy is regarded as a non-entity that can be disposed of for any reason. Amendment G allows late-term abortions of perfectly healthy babies who experience excruciating pain as their bodies are torn apart by the instruments of the abortionist.
Finally, let us consider the third sentence of Amendment G:
“After the end of the second trimester, the State may regulate or prohibit abortion, except when abortion is necessary, in the medical judgment of the woman’s physician, to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman.”
At first glance, this final sentence sounds like it allows some restrictions on abortion, but there is a giant loophole that renders any limits meaningless. The killing of preborn children is still allowed whenever it is necessary to protect the “health of the pregnant woman.”
What does “health” mean? The term is not defined in Amendment G, but previous court rulings have construed the word “health” in the broadest possible terms. In the case of Doe v. Bolton, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that, in the case of abortion, health means “all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age—relevant to the well-being of the patient.” Under the plain language of Amendment G, the only person who has the authority to decide when abortion is justified to enhance the “well-being” of a pregnant woman is the abortionist who is getting paid to kill the child.
Amendment G is so extreme that even many self-described “pro-choice” voters should have plenty of reasons to oppose it. Let us work to spread the truth about how this dangerous proposal endangers the lives of women and their preborn children.
