The South Dakota Athletic Commission meets on Friday at 11 a.m. in the Kneip Building in Pierre. Their agenda includes discussion of possible rule changes. The agenda packet doesn’t spell out definite rule changes, but it does include a copy of existing rules for the violent sports—boxing, mixed martial arts, and kickboxing—that the Athletic Commission governs with some Microsoft Word comment bubbles indicating changes the commission is thinking about:
- Increasing the pre-event application deadline from 14 days to 30 days.
- Increasing the contest fee from $1,000 to $3,000. The agenda packet suggests requiring the $1,000 up front but allowing promoters to pay the additional $2,000 after the contest.
- Requiring national registration and ID for MMA fighters, as is required for boxers now.
- Allowing physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and chiropractors to provide pre-application physicals for MMA fighters. No similar revision is marked on the physical rules for boxers.
- Removing the bell, buzzer, whistle, timer, and scales from the items promoters must provide at fights. The commission apparently provides those items now and will continue to do so.
- Increasing the maximum number of rounds a referee may officiate from 32 rounds to 35 rounds. Most MMA bouts are three rounds, so neither number works out neatly there.
- Changing the earliest public weigh-in time from 24 hours to 30 hours before the contest. I can see the logic of that change: if a fight is scheduled for 9 p.m., the weigh-in currently can’t happen before 9 p.m. of the previous day, which seems impractical. The rules specify that the weigh-in must happen at least eight hours before the fight, so the only practical weigh-in time is the morning or really early afternoon of fight day. Adding six hours would allow weigh-ins for night fights to happen during business hours of the day preceding the fight as well.
- Including rubber gloves among the items the promoter must provide to each corner. (Yuck!)
Reading South Dakota’s fight rules brings to my attention this requirement unique to our prettier pugilists adopted last summer:
Pregnancy Testing. A female contestant shall submit to an early pregnancy test administered at the official weigh-in by the physician in attendance. The female contestant shall submit to another early pregnancy test administered by the contest physician immediately prior to competing [South Dakota Administrative Rule 20:81:01:06, effective 2014.07.28].
I can see the logic: pregnant women probably should avoid boxing as much as they avoid smoking and drinking. A pregnant woman who fights puts her opponent at risk of violating South Dakota’s statutes on criminal battery of an unborn child. The U.S. Olympic Committee requires female boxers to submit a declaration of non-pregnancy provided by the medical jury. The state is already requiring men and women who want to fight for money to subject themselves to an invasion of their privacy through medical examination; isn’t a pregnancy test a logical part of that physical exam?
But can we justify the state requiring any woman to take a pregnancy test? Forced pregnancy tests grossly discriminate and violate basic human rights if they are a condition for education. Federal law forbids employers from discriminating against pregnant women (though that’s complicated: see the Supreme Court’s ruling in March). If such a forced test results in a woman being barred from an employment opportunity, must the fight promoter provide that woman with an accommodation that will allow her to continue in her chosen profession?
The Athletic Commission probably won’t venture into those moral weeds on Friday. But we have an interesting example here of the state subjecting certain women to a very intimate medical inquiry and restricting those women’s actions depending on the outcome.
Good thing wingnuts hate regulations.
So she can’t fight if pregnant because we have a duty to protect the child but she can go have planned parenthood dismember it without anesthesia and that is okay. It’s either a life with a right to life or it’s not and science says it is a life, a living human being. It’s time for all of you to change your mind on this one. We can love both. It’s basic human compassion. We wouldn’t dismember a tiny bird how much more a developing human being?
You are silly Mr. Hickey with that kind of nonsense, just plain silly.
I don’t think Hickey bothered to read the article, at least his comment didn’t relate to the subject at hand.
And about Hickey’s basic human compassion, on his Facebook page he regularly shares meme’s spreading the hate and disparaging Muslims who are also human beings.
Hickey,you sound like the one in need of anasthesia. Did no one ever teach you the facts of life about not sticking your nose in private affairs of others? Perhaps you need to unlearn whatever is in your head and get re-acquainted with the real teachings of your lord and saviour. No,not senile Ronnie Raygun.
Mr. Hickey, I’d chalk this up to informed consent. A women who visits Planned Parenthood for an abortion knows full well she is pregnant. A woman who wants to fight in a ring may not have that knowledge and would like to know. Seems like this isn’t a huge burden to bear – but perhaps some disagree.
I really wish we did know when life begins – it would make things so much easier. However in the meantime let’s just take this particular action at face value and refrain from trying to blur the lines between logical practices and abortion. In reality this is no different than our current conflicting laws such as § 22-16-4 that indicate we can lock someone up for manslaughter or murder if he/she injures a pregnant woman resulting in the ‘death’ of the fetus, even though we do still allow legal abortion which I’m sure you would argue also results in the ‘death’ of the fetus.
Surely you don’t expect consistency from government – and considering you have been part of it I’d like to think you know better.
Craig, I appreciate your inclusion of the idea of informed consent in this discussion. Indeed, a female fighter might not know she’s pregnant before a fight. One would think she’d go have that test done herself, without the state’s mandate.
In what other dangerous professions or situations does the state require a woman to undergo a pregnancy tests?
Hickey, didja have eggs for breakfast lately?
Maybe wingnuts want to provide stud services for un-pregnant female fighters so they cannot fight,just have babies which is what women were created for.
Folks, there is no need to respond to Hickey’s BS. When it comes to women and our rights as adult human beings he just makes stuff up. Then he lacks the courage to address questions and comments about what he blathered about.
I used to have some respect for him, but that was clearly displaced. I’m not pleased about that, but Hickey has been an effective teacher of his version of morality and I’ve tried to be a good student. I get it now Hickey, and I’ve written you off. I don’t wish you good luck.
Two things are tolerated in South Dakota that are ridiculed in more politically moderate states. Chiropractors (medically illegitimate at best) and evangelicals in politics. Giving legitimacy to either lowers the validity of all concerned.
I agree with your entire comment Porter. As my mom used to say, with a sarcastic tone, “Great minds think alike.”