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NOW-SD to Protest Abortion Ban TONIGHT! 6 p.m., Downtown Rapid City

Women, are you unhappy with your new Alito status as second-class citizens? So is the South Dakota branch of the National Organization for Women, which welcomes you to rally this evening at 6 p.m. Mountain at the federal courthouse (515 9th Street) in downtown Rapid City for a restoration of your constitutional rights:

The South Dakota Chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW, SD) is organizing a rally tonight, June 24, at 6 p.m. in downtown Rapid City in response to the overturning of Roe vs Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that gave women the right to have safe and legal abortions.

Callan Baxter, president of NOW, SD, made this statement: “Today we are stepping back 150 years with the court’s decision. We are entering a new era of vulnerability; however, we will not take this sitting down. We are prepared to fight for everyone’s rights and liberty for as long as it takes.”

Colorado is now the closest place for West River South Dakotans to get a legal abortion.

Tonight’s rally and protest begins at 6 p.m. at the Rapid City Federal Courthouse, located at 515 9th Street in downtown Rapid City [NOW-SD, press release, 2022.06.24].

Women and South Dakotans who love them are organizing protests elsewhere around the state. Fee free to note your nearest women’s rally in the comment section below.

And remember the most important rally this year: Tuesday, November 8, at your local polling place, where you can vote for Brian Bengs, Jamie Smith, and other conscientious candidates who will fight to restore women’s rights in South Dakota.

Update 16:32 CDT: Brookings County Democrats note that opponents of government uterus control to peacefully protest today’s rollback of the constitutional right to privacy in Brookings Monday at 5:45 p.m. on the southwest corner of 6th Street and 22nd Avenue.

18 Comments

  1. jerry 2022-06-24 16:33

    “The court’s decision is so emphatic, and so contemptuous of the principle of stare decisis, that one wonders whether the unvarnished radicalism of the decision will finally rouse millions of Americans to the threat posed by a court untethered to law, precedent or reason.” Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post 24.6.22
    Couldn’t have said it better. The Supreme Court is a clear and present danger to American Democracy.

  2. Mark Anderson 2022-06-24 17:03

    Now the reason he was going, I ain’t sure I could say, Might have been the rodeo in Santa Fe, “there’s a doctor in Chicago, I know she’ll be all right, He told himself as he stared into the night. And he said, ” I hope she finds the goodbye letter that I wrote her But the mail don’t move to fast in Rapid City, South Dakoter.”
    Kinky had it down along time ago, the first pro choice song. He said that anyway.

  3. 96Tears 2022-06-24 18:29

    And the only pro choice country song! Love the Kinkster! Would’ve made a fun Governor for Texas in the tradition of Ann Richards.

  4. Bonnie B Fairbank 2022-06-24 19:32

    Women whom post here. Rely soley upon yourselves to prevent unwanted pregnancies; get your fallopian tubes tied, crushed, severed, or all. It is evident we should not and can not believe all the bullsh*t we’ve read about “the right to choose.”
    Quit reading articles from people that say they’re “FIGHTING” for your reproductive rights. They’ve never physically FOUGHT a large, drunken, unemployed, stupid, rapist husband who would’nt wear a condom in 1982. I FOUGHT him all around our house and he stabbed me with my Girl Scout knife my Aunt Mary gave me for thirteenth birthday
    No charges filed. It was his right as my husband.
    Girls. No FIGHTING allowed.

  5. Curt 2022-06-24 21:59

    I am hoping someone will post photos of the gathering today in RC … my sign and my voice were there, but no camera.
    My estimate is around 200 people assembled peacefully – in the rain – to protest an egregious affront to freedom. I’m ashamed of our country, but proud of my fellow citizens who joined me in peaceful protest.
    Scotus is locked in place for decades, but Congress can act. Elections are more important every day.

  6. Jake 2022-06-24 22:25

    Curt, circled the block, honking and enjoying their taking of the intersection fir a change of the lights. Good turnout,rain and all.

    Bonnie, my heart goes out to you and others who have suffered because the marketplace and advertisement accentuated by the drive for $$$ has so objectified the female of our species-at its own peril, losing track of its reason for existence. Females have come a long ways the past 50 yrs or so) -hell, even longer with their struggle to obtain the “right to vote” which damned sure wan’t easy either. Will this Conservative Supreme Court attempt removing this too? Next will come their ‘drive’ to outlaw the “Pill” and rule that life begins at the mingling of egg/sperm. All at the the same time behind the smokescreen of saving you, the USA female, from the “heavy hand of government” (which they all decry but lust to be part of).
    A widower to one who opened my eyes to femininity, and son to the greatest of mothers, father to daughters I learn from daily I am an American today who is not surprised at this ruling, but all the same dismayed and troubled by it- and what it brings. The GOP dogs have been chasing this “car” and finally latched onto the tire or gunnysack in the hubcap and now all they have to do is prove what they can do with it. We’ll see.

  7. TGA 2022-06-24 22:58

    Stays with you forever doesn’t it Bonnie.

    Rape is a weapon of war in wartime and the weapon of weak persons otherwise.

  8. John 2022-06-24 23:49

    Protests, smotrests. The only thing thing that changes the status quo is violence. Righteous violence.
    Jesus whipping and throwing the banksters out of his temple. Patriots burning out, tarring and feathering, killing, and forcing Tories to emigrate. Beating the confederates, anti-suffergists, Nazis, etc.
    Sing kumbaya and god bless america till the cows come home; but nothing will change until one forces change against the will of the oppressor.
    Ben Franklin had recipes for abortion in his math text book. Abortion was perfectly known and legal at the nation’s founding and among the founders. Thomas Jefferson wrote the constitution and laws are not fixed in time, but must be adapted as man adapts.
    “I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”
    Regressives Alito, Thomas, and their go-alongs are returning america to the 1600 and 1700 hundreds. They need be pounded into plowshares.

  9. Curt 2022-06-24 23:55

    So, all I can say to Bonnie is I am sorry – very sorry – for the abuse you suffered. I am a man and occasionally I am ashamed to admit that.
    This Alito decision hits pretty close to home for me. The fact is that abortion did not begin when Roe was decided (really, look it up.) Roe legalized a procedure that has existed since the dawn of time – yes, even before the esteemed Founding Fathers put pen to parchment.
    I graduated from high school in 1972 – the year before Roe became the law of the land. A classmate of mine had an unplanned pregnancy and she and her husband-to-be sought the services of an (obviously) unlicensed provider for an (obviously) illegal abortion. It went badly. She did not survive. That’s real.
    I do not have the words to express the contempt I have for anyone who puts herself (like our Governess) or himself in the position of dictating medical decisions for people they don’t know and have never met.
    We will not win this argument in the Supreme Court (need I explain?) The deck is stacked against us there, so I believe we need to focus our energy on the legislative and executive branches. If it is the will of the People to allow geriatric misanthropes to continue to impose their will on our society, we’re screwed. Don’t give up. Wise up! Rise up!

  10. Curt 2022-06-25 00:06

    Heard this today at the protest: “Abort Kristi Noem.”

  11. Darkstar in the Morning 2022-06-25 01:08

    Large protest organized on the spur of the moment in Rapid City. I’d say easily the 200 that Curt estimated. And the point he made in a later post about abortions existing before 1972 is valid. When my mom and dad married in 1946 in Rapid City and moved into my dad’s small apartment, one of their neighbors was the son of the local abortionist and was very proud of the fact that his mother had never lost a patient. And one of my mother’s aunts apparently had an abortion done by a doctor somewhere in the Gregory-Burke-Winner area (but not in Burke) sometime before 1915.

    This stops nothing. It merely makes women (and trans men) victims. Apparently their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness means nothing to the current supreme court.

  12. jerry 2022-06-25 04:43

    June 25, Battle of the Greasy Grass was a resounding defeat of the republican, George Armstron Custer. Let us all hope that this historic time will repeat itself to bring the Christo Facist republican Supreme Court to the same symbolic, Last Stand Hill.

    FYI, Native reservations will not be abortion sites, but there will be safe haven on the West Coast of North America provided by governor leaders of the states of California, Washington and Oregon. Protection for womem, their healthcare providers and all who assist these brave women’s necessary journey. Wonder how company’s will afford to have workers live in anti choice states? I think it’s time for another iniative from the citizens of this state to join the West Coast team of women protectiors.

  13. larry kurtz 2022-06-25 06:43

    Planned Parenthood – Santa Fe
    Full Circle Health Center – Las Cruces
    Women’s Reproductive Clinic of New Mexico – Santa Teresa
    UNM Center for Reproductive Health – Albuquerque (offers surgical abortion)
    Planned Parenthood – San Mateo Health Center – Albuquerque
    Southwestern Women’s Options – Albuquerque

  14. All Mammal 2022-06-25 06:55

    John- Word heard, baby bird. You expressed what I have always felt deep down. I’m no sage, but believe that MY violence is beautiful. Because it must be carried out. There is no alternative sometimes.
    Bonnie B- You are a tough cookie and no matter the age, all rapers need swung on with a sock and Qball, an orange, or some quarters. (I have an extra heater you can have if you want. Its no fun being told it’s impossible for a husband to rape his own wife).
    96 Tears- when a megaphone was suddenly thrust into my hands at the rally, on the spot, I shouted your chant, “Liar, liar! Racist, racist! You are Kristi Noem!” Hope you don’t mind.
    Curt- I don’t know how to put my pics onto a link to share with you..(?)
    Jerry- good to know June 25th has a record of felling no good nonsense.
    Gosh, Mr. Kurtz- I knew you were a softie! Thats love, baby baby!

    I surprised myself with the lack of hesitation I felt about jetting downtown as soon as I read Mr. H’s announcement about the rally. Must be maturity and compassion that left no doubt which side I stand and fight on. And the realization that when something basic is denied and the female body becomes subject to the state’s pale, stale, and male mandates, whooa now. Scares me to death. I saw my mom cry when I told her we gotta go. She said “But the gang is coming”…
    I said, “But the government is subjugating women”

    So we picked my sister and her 2 kids up from the airport as we do every summer, explained we got a stop to make before Taco Johns, picked up some more kids, and went downtown for our first demonstration. My mom protested against Vietnam when she was a teen. I’m pretty sure I saw her cry at this protest. She’s not a huggy mom, but we hugged a lot. She’s fierce. My two nephews were troopers and my nieces had lots of questions about the signage. “What does No more wire hangers mean, Antie?”
    Mommy Dearest and my sister got a good yuck out of the young ladies choosing me to ask.

    We are now waking up in a much scarier world. Too bad the kids don’t get to enjoy the same oblivious security that was won for me to get to grow up in. We won’t stop fighting to get that back, if not for them; for theirs.

  15. Francis Schaffer 2022-06-25 08:14

    We now know the Republicans were correct about a ‘death panel’ just not in the ACA.

  16. Donald Pay 2022-06-25 14:06

    In Wisconsin’s Capital, there have been a series of protests, which we haven’t attended. At some point, I’ll join one. Even as I have some sympathy for “life-begins-at-conception” philosophy, I have no stomach for forcing that philosophy on anyone else. I’m more in favor of women making their own decisions on this matter.

    As I’ve gotten older, I have come to understand that protests rarely change anything. They can draw people together, uplift spirits, serve to link people together and provide some added media coverage to an issue, but protest alone is not going to cut it, especially on this issue. So they can further along two things make change: voting and violence. Both take organization that goes beyond protest.

    We already had violence here related to this issue in my city. Someone tried, and mostly failed, to firebomb the Right to Life offices in town after the draft opinion leaked. They did it when no one was in the building, so there was no danger to life. Still, violence is a dumb idea. Even if you are not morally opposed to violence, and I am, it tends to discredit your cause in the eyes of many people.

    I’m much more supportive of the voting, lobbying and petitioning way to make progress. These tend to bring people together, get people involved, cultivate leadership, encourage good people to run for office, etc. Ultimately being an involved citizen is what works best.

  17. Bonnie B Fairbank 2022-06-25 17:36

    Jake, Curt, TGA, and All Mammal:
    Thank you for those kind words. I don’t know if I’ve ever been a brave person or a tough cookie, unless it comes to animal welfare and self defense. Then I AM a flaming, crowbar weilding b*itch.
    Forty years after the event posted above (wow, forty years!?) the fact that peeves me the most? I never got my Girl Scout knife back from the less-than-helpful Denver Police Department. Those c*cks*ck*rs confiscated my last present from a beloved aunt, and didn’t care I had visible and bloody stab wounds under my sweatshirt and blood running down onto my jeans. No arrest, no charges, no prosecution. Nuthin’ to see here, folks; move along.
    It does stay with one forever, TGA.

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