No abortions are happening in South Dakota—Planned Parenthood is suspending its already all-too-occasional offering of this basic medical service to women at its Sioux Falls clinic because it can’t risk scheduling procedures that the Supreme Court may ban any day now:
“We have had to make the difficult decision to pause scheduling abortion appointments,” said Emily Bisek Vice President of strategic communication for Planned Parenthood North Central States.
She said with the high court’s possible ruling, the center “can’t in good faith keep scheduling patients when there’s a chance South Dakota’s trigger laws could go into effect” [Lexi Kurzman, “Abortions Paused in South Dakota,” KELO-TV, 2022.06.15].
Dang—with no abortions taking place in South Dakota, what will Republicans campaign on? What will the Jesus freaks do with the fetus dolls they trot out at the Brown County Fair? What will legislators do with their time in Pierre when there’s no more need to write abortion bills?
Oh yeah, banning contraception:
Some lawmakers on the right regard some forms of contraception not as birth control, but as abortifacients, a view reproductive rights advocates forcefully resist.
“At the state level over the last couple of years, we’re seeing some legislators conflating birth control and abortion, especially certain methods, and attempting to stigmatize birth control,” said Mara Gandal-Powers, director of birth control access and a senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, an advocacy organization advancing gender equality. “This isn’t a future problem. It’s a now problem.”
Wieland, the Missouri state senator, is among those with a wide view of what birth control methods might constitute abortion. He pushed last year for the measure that would have prevented Missouri Medicaid from paying for Plan B and IUDs.
“I believe life begins at conception,” Wieland said in an interview with Stateline. “Anything that destroys that life is abortion, it’s not birth control. [I have] no problem with stopping sperm and egg from connecting, but when that does happen, that is life.”
Plan B, an emergency contraception, is distinct from abortion medication, which is taken after pregnancy is established.
Still, some anti-abortion advocates target those emergency contraceptives and IUDs as, in their view, possibly preventing implantation of fertilized eggs, and therefore potentially capable of causing abortions. It’s on that basis that the group Students for Life of America successfully lobbied this year against a measure in the Illinois legislature that would have required public universities to provide vending machines that dispense emergency contraceptives.
“It could destroy the life of a newly created human being if fertilization has occurred,” said Lauren Enriquez, the deputy media strategist with the national organization [Michael Ollove, “Some States Are Already Targeting Birth Control,” Pew Trusts, 2022.05.19].
Authoritarians like Representative Jon Hansen (R-25/Dell Rapidstan) won’t be satisfied with making abortion unavailable in South Dakota. They won’t look at Planned Parenthood’s ending of abortion services in Sioux Falls and say, “Mission accomplished—no Special Session, no more government intervention needed!” They’ll keep pushing for more radical interference in the personal lives of women and others in South Dakota and across the country, more opportunities to use the power of the state to impose their morality and their control on citizens who thought they were getting limited government from these professed conservatives.
https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2022/06/07/abortion-care-on-wheels/
Mobile clinics—reproductive health trucks! But to keep from being spotted by the South Dakota Highway Patrol, they’ll have to park in the back alley.
birth control, gay marriage, all of these are in serious danger from these bible thumpers.
The same people who scream small government but want government to control everybody’s life.
SMDH
It’s hilarious, LEGAL abortion is unavailable. That’s all. I might ask Wieland from Missouri about that sperm egg thingy, why his God then wipes out up to 60 percent of life at conception? Shouldn’t he, or she be charged or something? You could ask that brilliant Dell Rapids mind about that too. He could sing you a song, a blues tune would be nice. I’d leave a tip for the boy.
As Mark implies, the statement that “No abortions are happening in South Dakota” is not quite accurate. While there may be no “legal” abortions, that says nothing about the SD women that now must rely on back alley dangerous abortions, whether using black market medications, home remedies, coat hangers, violence, or whatever, whether assisted or self-induced. An even more accurate statement would be that “SD women that terminate pregnancies will now be denied any legal medical help,” followed by the by-line that “anyone, trying to help a woman terminate her pregnancy, along with the woman, faces the death sentence in SD.”
Of course outlawing birth control is the next likely victim of the loss of the existing Constitutional “right of privacy.” Without that protection, SD politicians have gained the power to make virtually all decisions about formerly private matters, such as procreation, marriage, and a host of other highly personal matters.
Given the political impotence of the voices of SD Democrats, libertarians, and others who don’t think it wise to cede such a broad power to politicians, there remain few options for perserving a woman’s right to bodily integrity. One practical solution is for women in SD to implement the Lysistrata remedy described by Shakespeare, which certainly would help reduce any need for either birth control or abortions.
Ohhh bearcreekbat, thanks for letting me know. If I said for instance that any woman could contact Hey Jane online for abortion pills, not that I would. Would that be a death sentence? Would I have to list the address: http://www.heyjane.co or some other site that works for South Dakota? If I gave money for travel to see the blue skies of freedom, would that count? I can’t wait to get started on this. Next summer I believe we’re traveling to So Dak. We could offer a ride to someone who needs a lift. Until then you can contact https://www.plannedparenthood.org/ for all the information you need.
I say the 9th amendment should be protected and enforced so loud and hard that it makes the little 2nd amendment toy soldiers look like scared thumb suckers.
The 9th amendment cannot be underestimated and must get more face time. We can waive it around and turn to it with more vim and vigor than the wrung-out 2nd amendment creeps clutching their little weenies aka boom sticks could muster when they run to the nra to tattle to and hide behind.
I’d take my 9th over their 2nd any day of the week in America.
Saw this yesterday…. https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/06/abortion-doctor-mom-kids-explaining-roe-decision.html
Good read from a professional who knows beans aboiut abortions, stuff magats can’t wrap their reptilian minds around.
If, because it shows up clearly on an x-ray, a medical provider discovers a patient has an IUD will they be obligated to report it to the state?
Good point, gentlemen… but alas, since abortion will always be with us, legal or not, the Republicans can make sure abortion as a campaign issue is always with us.
We used to have moonshiners; soon we’ll have tourists carrying mifepristone, IUDs, and condoms across the border into Sioux Falls, Yankton, and Spearfish.
BCB, I appreciate the power of a good Lysistrata movement, but that depends on having a critical mass of women who haven’t already been captured into the patriarchal movement as Kristi Noem and Leslee Unruh have.
I wonder if the state will take an interest in all the little eggs fertilized at Sturgis. Will they inject tracking devices into women as they come and go from Sturgis to ensure they don’t visit any abortion clinics when they leave South Dakota?
Indeed. South Dakota is already rife with sobriety checkpoints, racial profiling makes I-90 a civil rights black hole and police just recently were stopped from forcing catheters into the urethras of the accused.
7. Republican politicians drive their anti-woman crusade to raise campaign dollars so ending reproductive rights in red states is Balkanizing women’s health care.
11. States that ban women from going out of state for their procedures or medications are violating the Commerce Clause enumerated in the United States Constitution.
The crazy right wing won’t stop with abortion. Of course birth control is next on the agenda. They are really aiming at is legalizing Old Testament polygamy and the compulsive marriage of young teen age girls to older men of stature. They really object to everything in male-female relationships that has been established in law since the year 0.
The abortion/contraception confligration is very much Catholic doctrine. Six fo the current Supreme Court justices are Catholic.
I appreciate the Lysistrata references. That play revolves around the choices made by women. How long before the first rapist claims that he committed no crime IF he impregnates the victim — a woman having a child is the ultimate good!? Or maybe his intention to impregnate is enough — for a man.
Right-to-Lifers don’t know their Bible, which in the very beginning says that God has to breathe breath into Adam to give him life. The same way when a fetus/baby comes into the world is not alive until it breathes. Genesis 2:7. “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”. King James Version (KJV)
Abortion does need a time frame and should not include late term abortion when breath could be possible.
bad news for deadbeat dads, isn’t it?
No, Algebra, it’s bad news for women who want to control their reproduction safely. It’s bad news for real conservatives who believe government shouldn’t make personal decisions for us. Deadbeat dads will still be deadbeats—see, for example, Rep. Tom Pischke, who uses his Legislative power to fight against women’s rights by banning abortion, then fights further against women’s rights by proposing bills to reduce his child support payments.
Boot Pischke from your party, and then I’ll believe you Republicans are serious about holding men accountable for their reprorudctive activities.
Telling women what to do rarely ends well.
Mark, let me try to answer your reasonable questions. You ask:
The questions simply boil down to what would make one an accesory to murder?
As to your first question, I don’t think telling the public where to lawfully acquire abortion pills would quite qualify any more than telling the general public where to lawfully acquire an AR-15 like those used to slaughter elementary students.
But assisting an individual in obtaining the pills or gun intending that they use the pill or gun to commit what SD defines as murder would probably be a different story. South Dakota law specifically provides:
Thus, to the extent a jury found that a defendant intentionally provides information to “advise” where and/or how to “plan. . . or commit. . . the crime,” or provides funds for travel to intentionally “aid or abet” in the “planning or committing the crime” of murder by the unauthorized termination of a pregnancy, that defendant would indeed be subject to the same death penalty as the woman who terminated her own pregnancy, according to the terms of SDCL 22-3-3.
And last, the question “would that be a death sentence?” is best answered by the fact that a sentence of death is not mandatory in SD. Rather it is an option for a jury, or if no sentencing jury then for the sentencing judge. If the jury unanimously finds a statutorily defined “aggravating circumstance” it may then unanimously recommend a death sentence in which case the judge must impose that death sentence (in abortion cases, by statute, there will always be the required aggravating circumstance, namely the age of the aborted entity, whether zygote, blastocyt, embryo or fetus). But if at least one juror votes against a death sentence, then the sentence must be mandatory life without parole for anyone over 18 at the time of the criminal act. If there is no sentencing jury then it is within the the judge’s discretion whether to sentence a defendant to death or mandatory life without parole.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/iowa-supreme-court-abortion-state-constitution
4 years ago a different made up iowa soopreme court ruled iowa’s constitution protected abortion. 4 years later a magaty, activist soppreme court overturned the 2018 dec ision using verbiage from both Alito and Barret. They also claimed 4 years does not make precedunce.
Miss indsey Graham went off on sinators who did not epect Kavernmouth to lie on overturning abortion. Isn’t that an admission someone likely committed perjury?
Business Insider has done an in-depth study of trigger laws, people and corporations behind them and which side is prepared for the end of Roe. The answers might surprise you.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trigger-laws-abortion-dobbins-jackson-supreme-court-first-13-2022-6
https://sheilakennedy.net/2022/06/whose-religious-liberty/
Jewish religion requires some abortions and their religious freedom, which magats don’t care about because Jews aren’t really white, will be thrown under the faux kristian bus. Floriduh lawsuit coming.
iowa magats few short years after defunding PP and the disaster created by not replacing the services they promised.
https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2023/10/15/iowa-republicans-couldnt-have-been-more-wrong-about-defunding-planned-parenthood/