South Dakota's state senate voted on Wednesday for an abortion ban aimed at giving the conservative-tilting Supreme Court an opening to overturn rulings granting women the right to the procedure.
Only an unlikely veto by Republican Gov. Michael Rounds could prevent the legislation from becoming law, people on both sides of the issue said.
"We hope (Rounds) recognizes this for what it is: a political tool and not about the health and safety of the women of South Dakota," said Kate Looby of Planned Parenthood, which operates the sole clinic providing abortions in South Dakota.
"If he chooses to sign it, we will be filing a lawsuit in short order to block it," she said after attending the afternoon debate at the state capitol in Pierre.
This is political suicide for the Republican Party. I have never been worried about abortion being overturned because too many people would be against it. The average citizen, against abortion, does not want the government making laws on their bodies. The Terri Schiavo fiasco was a good example. The GOP needs people like James Dobson, Pat Robetson and Jerry Falwell. Most reasonable people think these men shamelessly beg for money and have silly obsessions with children's shows.
A CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll, taken last month, found that 66% did not favor overturning Roe v Wade. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll taken last year came with the same number of pro-choice. It's when the wording of the polls change that the numbers drop. A good example is partial-birth abortion. The term was invented by anti-abortionist. There is no such medical term.
But "partial-birth" is not a medical term. It's a political one, and a highly confusing one at that, with both sides disagreeing even on how many procedures take place, at what point in pregnancy, and exactly which procedures the law actually bans.
That's what we call truthiness. Most people use actual medical terms, like dilation and extraction, to get their point across.
Update: NPR reports, "The only exception is to save the life of the mother." There will be no exceptions for rape or the health of the mother.
The New York Times also has an article.
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