10 March 2006

USA: South Dakota makes abortion a crime

South Dakota’s governor, Mike Rounds, on 6 March signed a bill that will make it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless the procedure is necessary to save the woman’s life.

The legislation would make no exception for instances of rape or incest, though victims in such cases could get emergency contraception.Under the new law, which is due to come into effect on 1 July, doctors could get up to five years in prison for performing an illegal abortion.

The move is seen as one of several intentional challenges to Roe v Wade, the case that made abortion legal in the US in 1973. Mississippi’s governor, Haley Barbour, has said he will sign a bill to all but ban the procedure, and new anti-abortion legislation has been proposed in Ohio, Georgia, Missouri and Tennessee.

‘The anti-choice folks across the country are feeling emboldened by the climate,’ said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. ‘You have an anti-choice president; you have an anti-choice US house and senate. We see that this is about more than just South Dakota: it’s about the country.’

‘We fully intend to challenge this law,’ said Kate Looby, state director of Planned Parenthood, which operates South Dakota’s only abortion clinic. ‘It’s just a question of how. Obviously, we are very disappointed that Governor Rounds has sided on the side of politics rather than on the side of the women of South Dakota to protect their health and safety’. About 800 abortions are performed each year in South Dakota. Planned Parenthood has said other women cross state lines in order to reach clinics.

The abortion bill passed South Dakota’s Republican-dominated legislature earlier in March. The House voted by 50 to 18, the senate by 23 to 12. However, in the likely event of a legal challenge before the legislation is due to take effect, a judge would probably suspend the abortion ban, meaning that the bill would not change state policy unless the case got all the way to the US supreme court and the state won.

Rob Regier, executive director of the South Dakota Family Policy Council, commended Mr Rounds’ decision to sign the bill into law. ‘His signature marks the beginning of a renewed effort to abolish abortion in our country,’ he said. And the Republican senator Bill Napoli said on the US TV channel PBS that most abortions were being carried out for ‘convenience’. He insisted, however, that exceptions could be made for rape or incest under a provision that protects the mother’s life.

South Dakota outlaws abortion, Guardian Unlimited, 7 March 2006