South Dakota Court Threatens Abortion Rights Initiative

Photo: Brad Nygaard Associated Press South Central District Judge Bruce Romanick listens to arguments from attorneys during a hearing Tuesday, July 23, 2024, in Bismarck, North Dakota, in a lawsuit challenging North Dakota's abortion laws.

Posted yesterday at 11:21 PM

• United States

The South Dakota Supreme Court overturned a trial judge's decision last month to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to remove an abortion rights initiative of the November ballot.

On Friday, the Court annulled the dismissal order and sent the case back for further proceedings. The anti-abortion group Life Defense Fund appealed the decision of Judge John Pekas, who rejected its lawsuit seeking to invalidate the measure.

The group alleged myriad wrongdoing related to the instigators of the abortion rights petitions.

In a statement, Leslee Unruh, co-chair of the Life Defense Fund, said the group was pleased that the court expedited the case and sent it back to the lower court.

“Rick Weiland and his paid team broke laws, induced South Dakotans to sign their abortion petition, left the petitions unattended, and more. Dakotans for Health illegally collected signatures to get Amendment G on the ballot, and therefore this measure should not be on the ballot in November,” she said.

Meanwhile, South Dakota's top elections official has until Aug. 13 to notify county auditors of which measures will appear on the November ballot.

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Mr. Weiland, head of Dakotans for Health, countered that the court challenge is “an ongoing effort by the Life Defense Fund and the right-to-life lobby to keep voters from deciding on this measure, and they’re continuing, as they’ve been doing for nearly 18 months, to do everything they can think of to keep it off the ballot.”

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Pro-choice supporters filed petitions totaling about 54,000 signatures in May. Secretary of State Monae Johnson’s office later approved the measure for the ballot.

The measure they want to put on the November ballot would prohibit the state from regulating “a pregnant woman’s decision to have an abortion and the carrying out of it” in the first trimester, but it would allow regulations in the second trimester “only if reasonably related to the pregnant woman’s physical health.”

The constitutional amendment would allow the state to regulate or prohibit abortion in the third trimester “unless the abortion is necessary, in the medical judgment of the woman’s physician, to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman.”

South Dakota makes abortion a crime except to save the mother’s life, under a trigger law that took effect in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion.

Abortion rights supporters have won all seven statewide abortion races since the Dobbs decision. Voters in several other states are also expected to vote later this year.