National pro-abortion groups are mobilizing to defeat a South Dakota initiative on the November ballot that would ban abortion except in cases of rape, incest or a threat to the life of the mother.
-- From "Pro-Abortion Groups Mobilize to Defeat Dakota Pro-Life Initiative" by Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer CNSNews.com 8/14/08
These [pro-abortion] groups see the initiative as the potential "first step" in a legal challenge to Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion-on-demand nationwide. The principal pro-life organizer behind the South Dakota initiative, meanwhile, does not dispute this perception.
"Let’s not kid ourselves," Nancy Keenan, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice America, told reporters at a press conference in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday. "The people behind this effort (want) to make South Dakota the first step in a long-term campaign to mount a legal challenge to Roe (vs. Wade)."
Keenan was joined by two other national pro-abortion figures, Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parent Action Fund, the political arm of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
"It seems desperate to me that they would hold a press conference in Washington, D.C.," Leslee Unruh, leader of the South Dakota organization behind Initiated Measure 11, "Vote Yes on Life," told CNSNews.com. Unruh said that calling national attention to her state's third attempt in almost as many years to ban abortion might backfire on the pro-abortion groups.
"Grassroots always trumps money in South Dakota," Unruh said. "People in South Dakota don't like it if they think someone nationally is trying to tell them what to do."
"Vote Yes for Life" gathered almost 60,000 signatures - more than three times the 17,000 required for inclusion on the ballot - and 48,000 signatures were officially turned in to the state.
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