Posted on 04/01/2006 4:52:12 PM PST by joesbucks
If South Dakota's abortion ban stands, it won't ban them from all parts of the state. The Oglala Sioux tribe president wants to open a women's clinic on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that will offer abortions only if House Bill 1215 becomes law. Cecilia Fire Thunder, President, Oglala Sioux Tribe "The best solution to abortion is to make sure that women have access to contraceptives, have access to family planning options, and that information needs to be out there at all times where all women of childbearing age have that information and use it." For those reasons, Fire Thunder wants to open a women's clinic on Pine Ridge, providing women with birth control options
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Of course all the doctors will be from outside the reservation.
No, the best solution would be to bring back morals. Young men keeping it in their pants, and girls keeping their legs closed.
Ganmbling and abortions.. what "great" ways for a tribe to make a NON-DECENT living.
Good luck!
Still sticking it to the white man
Cecilia Fire Thunder's all-night casino, car wash and abortion mill....
"Yea, give me a carton of Marlboro's with that Abortion"
OBTW: Since the tribal lands are not subject to state law who will guarantee the doctors' qualifications and the cleanliness of the clinics?
Today's Rapid City Journal Article. My remaining comments self censored.
Abortion clinic planning proceeds
By Bill Harlan, Journal Staff Writer
An unintended effect of South Dakota’s new law banning most abortions might be the creation of the first abortion clinic in western South Dakota in 20 years.
The clinic would be on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
“It’s about choice,” Oglala Sioux Tribe President Cecelia Fire Thunder told a small group of reporters Friday at tribal headquarters in Pine Ridge Village.
Fire Thunder suggested a reservation abortion clinic more than a week ago, saying tribal sovereignty would make it exempt from South Dakota’s new law banning all abortions except to save the life of the mother.
The new state abortion ban, which has no exemptions for rape or incest, is not yet in effect, and it is almost certain to face a challenge in court and a statewide referendum in November.
The law also has galvanized supporters of abortion rights, such as Fire Thunder, who once worked as a licensed practical nurse in a Southern California abortion clinic. “I prayed about that,” Fire Thunder said. She concluded that terminating a pregnancy was “between a woman and God.” She also has counseled Indian women about birth control.
On Friday, speaking slowly and quietly and fighting back tears, Fire Thunder explained why she decided to go public with an idea she has considered for years. “I was looking at my statistics about sexual assault and domestic violence, and it made me cry,” she said.
Fire Thunder said the tribe’s sovereignty would make a reservation clinic exempt from the state abortion ban, but she emphasized that the clinic would not be funded or run by the tribe. “This is my own position,” she said. “This is not the position of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.” She is proposing a private, nonprofit clinic funded by donations and fees.
Fire Thunder said she was working on the proposal on her own time, mostly after hours. But she also said her position as the elected president of a tribe is useful. “If I, as a private citizen, had made this statement, no one would have heard it,” she said. “That’s why this morning, as I was driving in, I said, ‘Good girl! This is my responsibility as a female human being.’”
Women on the Pine Ridge reservation and in other rural communities in western South Dakota often don’t have access to birth-control services or to emergency contraception, Fire Thunder said.
Alcohol and drug abuse, especially methamphetamines, also increase the number of rapes and sexual assaults on the reservation, she said. And many of those assaults aren’t reported for days, if at all. “By then, it’s too late,” Fire Thunder said. “We are creating children under the influence of drugs and alcohol.”
Fire Thunder believes a reservation women’s clinic could provide counseling, too, and education and birth- control services
The clinic could serve women in the entire region, Indian and non-Indian. “The reality is, this is not an Indian issue,” she said. “It’s an all- color issue.”
Fire Thunder said she had received more than 600 e-mails offering encouragement and even donations for a clinic. The messages came from throughout the nation and the world, from as far away as Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain.
Fire Thunder’s clinic suggestion has been widely circulated on Internet sites. She got a “Wings of Justice” award from BuzzFlash.com, for example, but not all of her reviews were positive. A column by Jill Stanek on the conservative WorldNetDaily.com was headlined “Sioux tribe plans to scalp its own.”
The legality of a reservation abortion clinic that contradicts a state law is not clear-cut. University of South Dakota law professor Frank Pommersheim, an expert in Indian law, calls the idea “potentially workable,” but questions about issues such as licensing could complicate the plan.
A national Planned Parenthood group called the “Post-Roe Task Force” also has studied whether reservation abortion clinics might be exempt from state law. “It’s very exciting that someone like Cecelia Fire Thunder would step forward and make a proposal,” task force member Sarah Stoesz said Friday. “I’m very interested in sitting down and talking with her.”
Stoesz also is chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood for Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. She said Planned Parenthood clinics in Sioux Falls and Rapid City would remain open, but the Rapid City clinic does not offer abortions. A reservation clinic that offered that service, she said, is “a great idea.”
Fire Thunder already has consulted attorneys about the clinic. Next week, she will meet with a “working group” of volunteers to discuss other issues, including fundraising.
South Dakota’s abortion ban might never become law. The court battles and the referendum campaign will be hard fought. But Fire Thunder said she would continue working to establish a women’s clinic no matter what the courts or voters decide. “We need something closer than Sioux Falls,” she said. The Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls is the only abortion provider in South Dakota.
The late Dr. Ben Munson of Rapid City, who retired in 1986, was the last abortion provider in the West River region. Pro-life groups picketed Munson’s office for weeks at a time, but picketers might pose less of a disruption at a reservation clinic, Fire Thunder said. Protesters would have to follow tribal laws. If they didn’t, she said, “We have the power to keep them off the reservation.”
Fire Thunder said she also had been in contact with leaders of other tribes in South Dakota and other states. The National Organization for Women has invited her to address a meeting. Fire Thunder believes a Pine Ridge women’s clinic could have a national impact. “I’m challenging the women in America to stand up,” she said.
It'll violate Fed Law if they don't use local medicine men.
"Young" men? There is far worse debauchery in the Boomers than today's proud youth.
No, the best solution would be to bring back morals. Young men keeping it in their pants, and girls keeping their legs closed.
They can call it the "HOKA HEY" [p/s] Clinic. That's Lakota for "It's a Good Day to Die".I
Yeah, and wait over there by the slot machines!
Custer didn't do enough to you?
" It'll violate Fed Law if they don't use local medicine men."
I used to live in that area several years back. The reservation didn't have a good relationship with the surrounding people. Incredibly poor, little education, high crime and so on. Perhaps the casino's have changed the financial part of that.
I'm sure planned parenthood kind find a loophole is federal law.
"Young people been getting laid since the dawn of man. Your solution never was ..never will be."
Funny how liberals pick an choose their stances. Either we've "evolved" out of barbarian status or we haven't. Which is it?
Does one have to be a high roller before getting comped an abortion?
Same old savages.
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