in an effort to get it on the ballot in November. That’s almost double the 35,000 signatures required to qualify for the ballot, and ahead of the state’s May 7 deadline.made way for a trigger law to allow a total abortion ban to take effect, South Dakota remains one of thein the country. The state only allows exceptions to save the pregnant person’s life, without exceptions for other medical emergencies, fatal fetal anomalies, or rape.
Dakotans for Health, the group leading the ballot effort, wants abortion to be legal under all circumstances in the first trimester of pregnancy. Their proposal would allow “regulation” by the state in the second and third trimesters, barring medical emergencies and to preserve the pregnant person’s health.
In other words, this proposed ballot measure actually opens the door for more restrictions, compared to the proposed ballot measures in other states, like Ohio or Florida, which would add a right to abortion through “fetal viability” to the state Constitution. As NBC notes, South Dakota voted for Trump by 26 points in 2020, so the proposal’s more conservative approach likely has something to do with that.
The bill was predictably panned by doctors because exceptions—especially vague exceptions—simply don’t work, particularly when the stakes are going to prison. “There’s no way that you can create a video that talks about any type of inclusive list of conditions where you can and can’t provide care,” one OB-GYBNPR earlier this year. “There’s not a line in the sand where someone goes from being totally fine to acutely dying.