South Dakota Moves To Legalize Killing Abortion Providers
A bill under consideration in the Mount Rushmore State would make preventing harm to a fetus a “justifiable homicide” in many cases.
By Kate Sheppard | Tue Feb. 15, 2011 3:00 AM PST
This article has been updated.
House Bill 1171 [1], has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote [2], and is expected to face a floor vote in the state’s GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon.
aggressively defended the bill [4] in an interview with the Washington Post‘s Greg Sargent on Tuesday morning. We have more on Jensen’s position here [5].
the bill was “hoghoused” [6]—a term used in South Dakota for heavily amending legislation in committee—in a little-noticed hearing [7]. A parade of right-wing groups—the Family Heritage Alliance, Concerned Women for America, the South Dakota branch of Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, and a political action committee called Family Matters in South Dakota—all testified in favor of the amended version of the law.
manslaughter [8] or murder [9] for crimes that result in the death of fetuses. But there’s a difference between counting the murder of a pregnant woman as two crimes—which is permissible under law in many states [10]—and making the protection of a fetus an affirmative defense against a murder charge.
Mother Jones. “Constitutionally, a state cannot make it a crime to perform a constitutionally lawful act.”
South Dakota already has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country [11], and one of the lowest abortion rates. Since 1994, there have been no providers in the state. 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 under state law women are then required to receive counseling and wait 24 hours before undergoing the procedure. (Click here [12] for an interactive map of abortion restrictions.)
The law that would legalize killing abortion providers is just one of several measures under consideration in the state that would create more obstacles for a woman seeking an abortion. Another proposed law, House Bill 1217, would force women to undergo counseling at a Crisis Pregnancy Center (CPC) before they can obtain an abortion. CPCs are not regulated and are generally run by anti-abortion Christian groups and staffed by volunteers—not doctors or nurses—with the goal of discouraging women from having abortions.
recent interview [14], state Rep. Roger Hunt, one of the bill’s sponsors, acknowledged that its intent is to “drastically reduce” the number of abortions in South Dakota.
threw it out it last July [15], arguing that it would “require medical providers to give untruthful, misleading and irrelevant information to patients” and would create “substantial, likely insurmountable, obstacles” to women who want abortions. Extending the wait time and requiring a woman to consult first with the doctor, then with the CPC, and then meet with the doctor again before she can undergo the procedure would add additional burdens for women—especially for women who work or who already have children.
Source URL: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/south-dakota-hb-1171-legalize-killing-abortion-providers
Links:
[1] http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2011/Bill.aspx?File=HB1171HJU.htm
[2] http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2011/RollCall.aspx?Vote=951
[3] http://www.dakotavoice.com/2008/05/phil-jensen-running-for-south-dakota.html
[4] http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2011/02/south_dakota_legislator_defend.html
[5] http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/sd-rep-justifiable-homicide-bill-has-got-nothing-do-abortion
[6] http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2011/Amendment.aspx?Amend=amd1171ra.htm
[7] http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2011/Bill.aspx?Bill=1171
[8] http://legis.state.sd.us/statutes/DisplayStatute.aspx?Statute=22-16-15&Type=Statute
[9] http://legis.state.sd.us/statutes/DisplayStatute.aspx?Type=Statute&Statute=22-16-4
[10] http://www.nrlc.org/Unborn_Victims/Statehomicidelaws092302.html
[11] http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/harold-cassidy-abortion-laws
[12] http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/state-abortion-laws-map
[13] http://motherjones.com/mojo/2006/07/waxman-exposes-pregnancy-crisis-centers
[14] http://vcyamerica.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=204&Itemid=130
[15] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/14/nebraska-abortion-screeni_n_646155.html
[16] http://www.pfaw.org/press-releases/2011/02/pfaw-condemns-abortion-provider-murder-bill