Update 7/16/2024: Abortion advocates won in a South Dakota court on Monday when a judge granted a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a pro-life group to stop a pro-abortion ballot measure.
Circuit Court Judge John Pekas ruled in favor of Dakotans for Health, the pro-abortion group behind Amendment G, which would enshrine a “right” to abortion in the state’s constitution. Currently, preborn children are protected from abortion in South Dakota, except when the mother’s life is at risk (though induced abortion — the direct and intentional killing of a preborn child — is never medically necessary.) If Amendment G passes, it would prevent South Dakota legislators from protecting preborn children in the first trimester of pregnancy and set rules for protecting children in the second and third trimesters.
The pro-life group, Life Defense Fund, filed the lawsuit under the claim that Dakotans for Health broke election laws in its process of gathering petition signatures to get the pro-abortion measure on the ballot. Pekas said he wondered why the South Dakota Secretary of State’s office wasn’t named as a party in the lawsuit.
“I don’t know how the Dakotans for Health can control the Secretary of State,” Pekas said during the hearing. “They submitted the (petition) information to the state of South Dakota and it has been accepted. The challenge I believe is now out of the hands of Dakotans for Health. In this particular instance, this is a collateral attack.”
Life Defense Fund co-chair Leslee Unruh said in a press release, “The case was brought because we have a mountain of evidence and hours of video footage showing that (Dakotans for Health) deceived and tricked South Dakotans into signing their petition. This unexpected dismissal further plays into their motive to delay our case and refuse to answer our documented allegations. We will follow the judge’s invitation to appeal this case.”
Pekas’ ruling follows a decision from federal Judge Karen Schreier, who would not rule on the lawsuit because she wanted to hear from a state court first. Unruh said that Life Defense Fund will appeal Pekas’ decision.
7/12/2024: A federal judge has decided not to rule on a South Dakota lawsuit challenging a pro-abortion ballot measure initiative — for now. The ballot measure would enshrine the “right” to abortion in the state’s constitution, and Judge Karen Schreier said she wants to hear from a state court before she rules.
In June, the pro-life organization Life Defense Fund filed a federal lawsuit against the ballot measure, alleging that the group behind the measure, Dakotans for Health, broke election laws in its process of gathering petition signatures, and misled people as to what they were signing.
In her Friday ruling, Judge Schreier said she wants to wait for a state court to rule on an issue within the lawsuit before she intervenes. That issue pertains to a 2018 state law governing ballot petitions. Dakotans for Health cites state ballot measure restrictions established in 2019 and 2020 in its defense, arguing that because those restrictions were overturned, the 2018 law was also invalidated. In contrast, Life Defense Fund contends that the 2018 law still stands and says that Dakotans for Health did not follow the protocol established in 2018 when submitting its ballot measure. A motion hearing in the state-court lawsuit is scheduled for next week.
READ: FACT CHECK: Is abortion an enumerated constitutional right?
“If the state court ruling contradicts a federal court order, this court will consider the issue at that time,” Schreier stated.
Meanwhile, Dakotans for Health has also filed a federal lawsuit to invalidate the Life Defense Fund suit.
Currently, nearly all preborn children in South Dakota are protected from abortion. Life Defense Fund has previously warned that if passed, the pro-abortion amendment known as Amendment G, would not only undo the pro-life law, but also allow abortion up to the point of birth. The amendment would also eliminate measures including parental notification laws, conscience protections for medical professionals, and facility requirements for abortion businesses.
“We cannot allow abortion through nine months of pregnancy to be written into our state’s founding document,” said Life Defense Fund’s Co-Chair Rep. Jon Hansen in a video. “The results would be completely devastating to life in our state.”
