A South Dakota state lawmaker warned voters Saturday about a deceptive new campaign by abortion activists to create a “right” to abortion on demand up to birth in the state constitution.
Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan reports state Rep. Jon Hansen, a pro-life Republican, said abortion activists with the pro-abortion group Dakotans for Health recently launched a petition to put an “extreme” constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2024.
“This measure is the most extreme abortion amendment that I can possibly imagine,” Hansen said. “It’s a total prohibition on any regulation whatsoever on abortion,” even up to the baby’s birth.
The petition is deceptive because it appears to allow limits on abortions in the third trimester when unborn babies are viable. It says 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.”
The problem is that “health” is a very broad term that can include basically anything. Some abortionists consider pregnancy itself a health condition and could use it to justify elective late-term abortions.
“This doesn’t say physical health in the third trimester,” Hansen said. “This says ‘life or health of the pregnant woman.’ This can mean mental health. When we talk about mental health, it can mean anything from anxiety, depression, suicide ideation.”
He continued: “Constitutional language should be very specific and defined so that people know what they’re living under. When you write vague constitutional amendments and try to put them in the Constitution, I think that’s a bad thing for the state.”
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Abortion activists have until Nov. 7, 2023 to collect 60,000 valid voter signatures on the petition, according to the report. If they succeed, it would go on the November 2024 ballot for voters’ consideration.
Currently, South Dakota is one of 14 states that protect unborn babies by banning abortions. Exceptions are allowed if the mother’s life is at risk.
Pro-life state leaders also are working hard to make voters aware about how extreme the petition is. Dale Bartscher, president of South Dakota Right To Life, told South Dakota Public Broadcasting recently: “We’ve seen these circulations firsthand. Many of them lie. They mislead. They don’t tell the truth to the public about the measure that they’re circulating. That’s where South Dakotans can take our stand.”
Polls consistently show most Americans support strong legal protections for unborn babies from abortion, especially after the first trimester. A recent Harvard poll found 72 percent of Americans, including 75 percent of women, oppose abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Another Marist poll in January similarly found 71 percent of Americans oppose abortion after the first three months of pregnancy.
Even in Democrat strongholds like California, polls show opposition to abortions through all nine months of pregnancy. For example, a Rasmussen poll in August found only 13 percent of California voters think abortions should be legal up to birth.
However, three states, California, Vermont and Michigan, passed pro-abortion amendments to their constitutions in November. Pro-life leaders warned that the amendments will void restrictions on late-term abortions and parental consent laws, and allow unborn babies to be killed for any reason through all nine months of pregnancy.
Pro-abortion activists dumped tens of millions of dollars into the states, funding massive misinformation campaigns that deceived voters about just how radical the amendments were. Notably, an executive at the cryptocurrency company FTX, which since has been accused of massive fraud, donated $4 million to back the Michigan amendment, according to campaign finance records.
