South Dakota Right to Life is under the glare of the spotlight in an article posted at the Dakota Scout today, as the group is being criticized over their opposition to place an exception into state law to “preserve the life of the mother” have caused measures to fail in both Houses.
Heavy opposition from South Dakota Right to Life has stalled efforts by a group of female Republican legislators to clarify what’s know as a “life of the mother” exception to South Dakota’s abortion ban.
With a week left to go in the state’s 98th Legislative session, there’s been just one contentious abortion-related bill filed — and it never saw debate. Rep. Taylor Rehfeldt in early February shelved a bill she crafted to more clearly permit abortions when a pregnancy puts a mother in danger of death. And another run at similar legislation this week by Sen. Erin Tobin never came to fruition.
and..
“They are the hold up,” Tobin told The Dakota Scout Wednesday morning. “We’ve worked eight months to try and get them on board, and we’re being delayed. It’s really difficult to understand.”
Read the entire story here. (subscription required)
In previous years, the prevailing line of thinking for most South Dakotans was to prohibit abortion, but to allow exceptions for rape, incest, and the life (or health) of the mother. Refusing to address the exceptions places SDRTL, which has always been the most mainstream of anti-abortion groups, in danger of being considered more draconian and extreme at a time when a measure to restore abortion rights is being circulated for the ballot.
With an organizational board that boasts no fewer than 5 current/former legislators as part of the group, you would think that they’d look at the big picture, as opposed to adopting a more hard-line stance.
We’ll see how that works out in the long run.
South Dakota Right to Life needs to get on board, or we will become another Kansas, and lose our Pro-life battle in a landslide vote by the people. https://t.co/56gL1CKDTY
— Erin Tobin (@ErinTobin21) March 1, 2023
I remember two state wide votes where the voters rejected limits on abortions so present legislative actions are against what voters wishes.
Traditionally, pro-lifers have not supported bills similar to this because of the myriad of exceptions allowed under the ‘health” of the mother. Those who craft these bills try to mollify some by making it sound reasonable, but the devil is in the details and their definition of “health” is so broad to be meaningless. I’ve not been privy to the committee meetings or discussions on this bill, but that would be my assumption.
Well put, Mr. Santana
I suspect you are right. But that doesn’t make it any more palatable. Now the argument is how much suffering is the woman required to endure. Bizarre and surreal come to mind. Tobin is right. SDRTL will rue the day if this doesn’t get settled.
Erin tobin…you are an embarrassment to the senate… ut at least you pass meaningful kegislation like being a liberal and wanting gender neutral terms in our constitution..good grief
Yeah how dare we change the constitution to reflect the fact that women can also be governor. Someone’s still salty she knocked Qualm out.
“Kegislation” sounds like something I would have been fond of in college!
Somebody was typing angry!! LOL, kegislation!
Tobin can bring the bill. She didn’t have to pull it because SDRTL didn’t support it. She should just do what she thinks is right.
Noem wasn’t going to sign her bill anyway. Is she mad at Noem?
Bingo, Mr Santana. One can presume SDRTL isn’t on board because this is simply a pro-abortion bill. 3 people with advanced degrees in nursing should better understand the difference between “life” and “health” and how that might be a problem to those who are truly anti-abortion and not just flaunting the “pro-life” label. That fact aside, addressing the good people of the SDRTL with such confrontational language isn’t a good look for any so called “conservative” legislator.
If the current law is too unclear for medical professionals, who are supposed to be highly trained to identify life-threatening conditions, then they should consult with their more experienced colleagues or trusted legal counsel to explain it to them.
Ah yes, in a life or death situation I want to wait for my doctor to get a legal opinion. In ER rooms, decisions have to be made quickly. What happened to letting doctors do their job.
That’s the point. They already know. Claiming the existing law is “too vague” is a BS excuse to weaken the law. If they don’t know the what life or death is, they are either inadequately educated or in the wrong line of work.
That’s uhm, that’s quite a tweet.
Rehfeldt has been railing against pro life groups, yesterday she blasted Republicans for being republicans… what leg of the conservative movement is next?
You mean Tobin? Rehfeldt has been working with the prolife groups not against.
Good, let the people decide by a vote. Then we can have the big government autocrats overturn the vote again in the SD legislature. Then they can all get re-elected because the people of South Dakota fall for the national talking points and would “NeVeR VoTE fOr a DemOcRaT”.
Life of the mother is pro life. How is this a debate? We are running ourselves off a cliff in the name of ideological purity
The hard right has gone absolutist. It won’t end well for them.
Objective medical experts all agree that there are NO (and I repeat NO) medical conditions that require an unborn baby to be killed. Some conditions may require the separation of the unborn baby and the mother and the baby may not survive that separation, but it is NEVER necessary to kill the baby to save the life or even protect the health of the mother.
May i introduce you to ectopic pregnancies?
I have seen three cases: ectopic pregnancy, severe (really severe) hyperemesis gravidarum, and triple positive breast cancer.
None of these are viable pregnancies if the mother will not live long enough to deliver the child.
Exactly correct.
Ectopic pregnancy is an example of when the baby is separated from the mom and the baby usually dies. The baby isn’t purposefully killed.
same thing when hyperemesis gravidarum is so severe the mother becomes dehydrated, tears her esophagus and bleeds out.
I have seen it so bad we had the woman on IV nutrition, kept her stomach empty, but the violent retching continued. After two weeks without relief, she opted to abort the pregnancy, Clearly something was terribly wrong; it was likely going to kill her, as she continued to lose fluids through vomiting, even though nothing was going into her stomach by mouth.
With cancer diagnosed during pregnancy, one option is to attempt to keep the mother alive and induce labor when the child reaches viability, then do chemo. This might be considered a form of abortion if the child does not survive. But it has actually happened that a mother is losing the fight, treatment was delayed too long, and all you can hope to do is keep her alive long enough to deliver the child..The alternative is to initiate cancer treatment during the pregnancy and hope that the baby survives it. If pregnancy loss is a predictable outcome of chemotherapy, should that be banned too?
But with triple positive breast cancer, it is the pregnancy hormones themselves which are throwing gasoline on the fire. The only way to slow down the cancer is to stop the hormones.
These are really tough situations and allowances must be made for them.
Why lie about such an easily verifiable claim?
I think a lot of people are missing the main point of Tobin’s tweet: if the people of SD feel like our current law is too strict, we risk them voting for extremist abortion ballot measure, which is what happened in Kansas and a real possibility here given the ’06 and ’08 votes. If our law is viewed as a reasonable ban on abortion, with generally agreed to exceptions, a lot more people will be comfortable with that and the ballot measure may fail.
True – yet the definition of health could be a little more objective. It’s a matter of life or death.
When has this been the case?
“the prevailing line of thinking for most South Dakotans was to prohibit abortion, but to allow exceptions for rape, incest, and the life (or health) of the mother.”
If that were so, there would be no trigger law.
Why is capital punishment appropriate for the biological child of a criminal?
The trigger law was put in place by the legislature. If this is left up to the voting public, they will pass legislation to allow for exceptions including rape, incest, and the health of the mother. It’s already been voted on twice by the public and was supported. I’d suggest following the will of the people or they will likely pass something far more lenient. Tobin is 100% correct.
What’s the supposed justification for letting an abortionist violate a child’s God-given right to life merely because he or she was conceived through incest?
Should it also be legal to murder that child outside the womb?
All three of your exceptions would undermine support for the right to life by logically contradicting the very foundation of the pro-life position.