24. South Dakota Takes Extreme Measures to Be the Top Anti–Abortion State

Top 25 of 2012 Sep 30, 2011

South Dakota is taking extreme action against any person who performs an abortion within the state’s borders. The South Dakota House is taking up a bill to redefine “justifiable homicide” that may “make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions,” Mother Jones reports. A bill backed by the GOP could, in theory, allow a woman’s father, mother, son, daughter, or husband to kill anyone who tried to provide that woman an abortion, even if she wanted the procedure. GOP lawmakers at the state and federal level have come up with four other radical abortion restrictions to marginalize women’s rights and eradicate choice. Through such inflexible attachment to pro-life policies, the GOP subordinates the choices and lives of women to a narrow-minded and impracticable philosophy.

In 1994 the state banned abortion providers inside its borders. “Planned Parenthood flies a doctor in from out-of-state once a week to see patients at a Sioux Falls clinic. Women from the more remote parts of the large, rural state drive up to six hours to reach this lone clinic” and must “receive counseling and wait 24 hours before undergoing the procedure.”

Other proposed restrictions include: GOP state lawmakers in Arizona and Ohio unveiled so-called “Heartbeat Bills” to “prohibit women from ending pregnancies at the first detectable fetal heartbeat.” The heartbeat can be heard “within 18 to 24 days of conception” and “in almost all cases by six weeks,” a period in which “many women don’t even know they’re pregnant.”

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) “fast-tracked” an anti-abortion bill mandating that “pregnant women be shown an ultrasound of the fetus at least two hours before an abortion.” Physicians would have to show the fetus’s dimensions, limbs or internal organs, and — if audible — the fetal heartbeat.”

Arizona GOP Rep. Steve Montenegro introduced bills to criminalize abortions if they’re sought because of race or sex. The bill would charge doctors with a Class 3 felony if they “knowingly perform abortions for these reasons.”

On the federal level, House Republicans took the first two months of the new year to marginalize the rights of women. First, they tried to exclude certain victims — including women who are drugged, women who do not physically fight off the offender, and some minors — from abortion coverage by redefining rape. Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) then introduced the “Protect Life Act,” a bill that would “give doctors the green light to let pregnant women die if they have a life-threatening condition and need an emergency abortion.”

Source:

“The Five Ways That The GOP Is Trying To Eradicate A Woman’s Right To Choose,” Tanya Somanader, Think Progress, February 5, 2011. http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/15/five-ways-eradicate-choice/

Student Researcher: Taylor Wright, Sonoma State University

Faculty Evaluator: Don Romesburg , Sonoma State University

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  • NWOW

    WOW! Unbelievable! Pro-life and Pro-choice is not a left or right movement…. polls suggest that more than 75% of the population in the United States personally take a pro-life stance! And people, get educated!!! The embryo is only “one cell” after fertilization for ONE DAY!!! 21-25 days the heart, by day 30 has a brain, kidneys, liver, eyes, ears, mouth…. by six weeks it has all of its fingers and toes even unique finger prints…has brain waves that can be recorded on an EEG by 40 DAYS!!! Has sensitivity to touch by day 40 days when his sensory nerves are developed and are actually more sensitive at this time than an adult or infant~ pain impulses are fully transmittable and has all of the brain parts and brain cells that are responsible for consciousness and is fully able to interpret pain by 10 weeks. Did you know that the fetus does not receive any pain medication to prevent it from feeling being torn apart by suction, or burned by saline? DId you know that there is proof that several fetuses survived abortions (even recently) for several hours as they lay there mangled and weakly crying until they finally died? I don’t know how anyone thinks this is humane! Lets protect the animals and trees but not protect a living human fetus? Bet they don’t tell you that it is harmful for the mother as well, and may completely cause sterility… and severe depression. I have several friends that are severely depressed from having an abortion…

    Lastly, have you ever done your research on how planned parenthood was founded, who the founder was, what her beliefs were, and how it is tied to the eugenics movement? People, please be educated before you insult your own intelligence.

  • NWOW

    And I am truly sorry for those people that have been raped, but there
    are very early term abortions in a pill form that just turn off the
    growth hormones and halt growth in early pregnancies as an alternative
    option for those that have been raped. (usually, rape victims can get the morning after pill as well) But it wouldn’t make sense to give a murderer a syringe and needles and tell him that it is okay to kill a person in a not so violent way. This is the same logic applied to mothers who do backdoor abortions. They reap what they sow. This is not the early 1900′s where women don’t have many options, and seems like most people in these days are pretty familiar with how pregnancy occurs and how to prevent it. Where is the logic here?

  • NWOW

    Honey, the a fetus is not a cell!!! An embryo is a cell, and by day 2 after fertilization is actually much more than one cell!!! This is not a myth this is science.

  • NWOW

    Ok, didn’t know that abortion was limited to before 6 weeks.

  • NWOW

    The vast majority of women who have abortions do not do it because of life threatening conditions.

  • NWOW

    I AGREE!!!! They already had a choice before pregnancy!! Doubt the car dealer will take my five year old truck back for a full refund!

  • NWOW

    You are completely insulting the intelligence of women. If any woman stays in a situation where she is “forced” then she brought it on herself. No one is forcing anyone to have a child except maybe the act of sex, the choice to stay with someone who “forces her.” Women can have sex whenever they want and if they aren’t careful, they will get pregnant! This is BIOLOGY! It’s also biology that if we don’t eat we will die of starvation, and if we smoke we might get lung cancer, and if we over eat we might become obese….. and the list goes on and on.

  • NWOW

    I know plenty of people that have been trying to adopt kids from the foster care system. CPS makes rules that make it very difficult to even adopt many of these children.

  • NWOW

    Just wanted you to not that the author is suggesting that in a round about way, it could be interpreted as such and is not definitive. Typical media distortion.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002428500911 Dolores Schroepfer

    hey Ben, I totally agree with your argument. We humans MUST accept responsibility for our sexual behavior. If you are not willing to have a child then either get sterilized or don’t have sex. I do not think that anyone has a right to kill a child, born or still in the womb, just so they can indulge themselves without full willingness to be responsible for any and all outcomes. I am a lesbian, a feminist from way back, a progressive socially……but, it has always been very clear to me that abortion is murder, by another name. You don’t even have to have anything but a moderate IQ to know that. I find that I feel revulsion toward people who have murdered their babies. It is evil and disgusting.

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