email from Planned Parenthood on SD abortion ballot question

[Gopher Broke]

FW: We’re certified

Dear friends,

I usually don't do this, but the message below is just too important not to pass on to you right away...

I just received the email below from my friend Sarah Stoesz, the President of Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota Action Fund. She's in a fight in South Dakota that we all have a huge stake in and she needs your help.

http://www.standupsd.com/petition

Anti-choice extremists have targeted South Dakota in their latest attempt to outlaw abortion. As Sarah describes in her report below, they are funneling millions of dollars and bus loads of activists to enact a near-complete ban. And if they succeed in South Dakota, there's no telling what comes next.

In recent weeks, South Dakotans have done their part by successfully forcing a challenge to the law. They delivered more than twice the number of signatures needed to get on the ballot in November. But now it's our turn.

Please stand up for South Dakota today.

http://www.standupsd.com/petition

Start by signing the StandUpSD.com petition. Then, if you can, make an early contribution to help give Sarah all of the resources she will need in the months ahead. Now that the signatures are certified, she needs to raise at least $250,000 before July 1st to put 15 field organizers on the ground throughout South Dakota. That's about $100 dollars a day per organizer.

Will you donate $100 right now to help fight the abortion ban in South Dakota?

http://www.standupsd.com/contribute

Please don't wait. Take action now.

Sincerely,

Cecile Richards President Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Inc.

-----Original Message----- From: Sarah A. Stoesz Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 8:36 AM To: Cecile Richards Subject: We're certified!!!!

Dear Cecile,

It's official! On November 7th we're on the ballot in South Dakota! With the help of hundreds of volunteers, our tiny SD staff and coalition partners collected nearly twice the number of signatures needed to prevent the abortion ban -- HB 1215 -- from taking effect on July 1 by forcing it to the ballot.

Since you and I met last month we've made great progress. Here's a brief report:

First (obviously) is the signature certification today.

As you know there were many rumors that the anti-choice leaders of this bill were planning to challenge the validity of our signatures and the deadline for handing them in. I think we really shocked them by getting so many petitions so much quicker than they thought.

The polls in SD are still really tight. I don't know about you, but when I talk to my friends and family around the country they just don't seem to get how serious the effects of this law are for everyone nationwide... how urgent this fight is. But when I talk to people on the streets in SD -- whether they consider themselves pro-choice or not -- they know this law goes too far. But will they vote??!!

Oh, and how the opposition is organizing! They'll be bringing in bus loads of people and millions of dollars to this fight. They also have an anonymous donor who has pledged $1 million for the Governor to defend this thing.

My next goal is to get 15 full time staff members on the ground. We really need people to be able to start the painstaking work canvassing, flyering, making phone calls, etc.

So, it goes without saying that we've got our work cut out for us. But, as you and I both know, this is simply not a battle we can lose, so I'm throwing everything we've got into it and more. I'm estimating that we'll be committing millions of dollars directly to this campaign. This is, of course, on top of the money it takes to keep our two clinics open in the state.

So, starting today, I'm on the road to raise $250,000 to hire the 15 field organizers we"ll need. We've identified a handful of great candidates and we're on the search for more. These are people from South Dakota, leaders in their communities. They will be our key to victory in November.

Cecile, thanks again for your partnership in this fight. It's truly the biggest challenge of my life and I only hope that, with your help, we can get Americans from all over involved. This is not going to be won in South Dakota alone.

I look forward to speaking with you soon,

Very best -

S.

P.S. We've launched our new campaign website. Check it out at www.StandUpSD.com. Tell everyone you know to sign our petition and help get the word out!!!

Sarah A. Stoesz

President and CEO

Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Action Fund

1965 Ford Parkway

St. Paul, MN 55116

[end of forwarded message]

[MNJohnnie]

Excuse me, this is the Business of South Dakota not lunatic Liberal activists in St Paul Mn.

[AntiGovernment]

The South Dakota ban does not even include an exception for women who are raped. It deserves to be overturned, and Ronald Reagan, a strong supporter of rape exceptions, would agree with this effort.

[Antoninus]

Translation: "Planned Barrenhood (aka, the Sisterhood of Soulless Ghouls) needs baby-blood to fuel our Sterility Machines. Won't you help us keep the flow of baby-blood free and unimpeded?"

[Mr. Lucky]

So, you pretty much believt that the child conceived by the act of rape should be punished more severely than the rapist?

[Antoninus]

The South Dakota ban does not even include an exception for women who are raped.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because a baby was conceived via rape, it doesn't mean he's somehow less human and deserving of the death penalty.

Ask a child who was conceived via rape, put up for adoption, and subsequently raised by a loving family if he'd rather be dead. Not everyone was given life under ideal circumstances. That doesn't mean that death is a better option.

[BuddhaBrown]

I disagree with the "except in the case of rape or incest" illogic.

I have heard most of the political and emotional rationale for that position and though they are seductive, they are not convincing. From the political perspective, one might suggest that there is a better chance of getting anti-abortion legislation passed when exceptions are allowed and I have no reason to doubt that assertion. From the emotional angle, we all have heart-felt sympathy for the victimized mother.

There is a powerful reluctance to force a woman to continue her physically demanding and emotionally draining role in the most divine function of God's nature when the initiation of that process was without the mother's normally assumed consent. We would be assigning to her the responsibility to carry into this world a new soul who will be a seemingly unholy combination of her own self and of a man who is either freightenly unknown or sinfully familiar.

There is, of course, the almost inescapable temptation to assume this new person will somehow not be good because the genetic code of a rapist was used in his/her construction. Or that the new person will somehow not be complete because of the potential for physiological problems to arise when daddy is grandpa.

Adoption is always an option when the post-birth burdens outweigh the natural desire of the mother to nuture a child which is, after all, still half her.

On any scientific or logical rationale, assuming human life has value, I would ask two questions:

1) Does it continue to grow and change via natural biologic process?
If the answer is 'yes', then it is alive.

2) What will it be if the process is allowed to complete?
If the answer is 'human', then it has rights.

[Hodar]

This is as it should be; not determined by a group of judges, but voted on by the people of that state.

South Dakota, the nation's eyes are on you. People will hate whatever decision is made, but at LEAST the people of South Dakota will have made the decision. It will be a decision made by the people, not forced on the people.

[AntiGovernment]

So, you pretty much believt that the child conceived by the act of rape should be punished more severely than the rapist?

I don't think that the woman should be punished more severely than the rapist: by being forced to carry a child, conceived in violence, who looks like her rapist.

[AntiGovernment]

Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because a baby was conceived via rape, it doesn't mean he's somehow less human and deserving of the death penalty.

Do you disagree with Reagan?

Ask a child who was conceived via rape, put up for adoption, and subsequently raised by a loving family if he'd rather be dead.

I'm concerned about the effects that this will have on the woman. I don't believe in pushing her around, after such a horrible atrocity.

[Mr. Lucky]

If the child were conceived by a man who later, say, beat the mother, or robbed her, or stole her car, should she then be permitted to kill the baby?

[Paperdoll]

Murder is murder, no matter WHO you kill!

[Essie]

And how many children are we talking about??? How many children in South Dakota are conceived by rape?? And because maybe a couple were conceived by rape this makes a law that doesn't make exceptions for this case unjust. All those other unborn people have a right to die? All the talk about excluding incest and rape by Planned Parenthood is a way of diverting people from the real issue. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people are being terminated for one reason only - their presence is inconvenient. And this termination is being dressed up in women's rights issues.

[Gopher Broke]

I added all three states because the last letter in the post above is from the Planned Parenthood head over all 3 states:

Sarah A. Stoesz

President and CEO

Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Action Fund

[apackof2]

Why do you assume that a woman who is raped automatically wants to have an abortion?

[tkathy]

This should be voted on by the people, not a few old men. (Just like the immigration issue should be voted on by the people). Then hopefully get the issue out of politics.

[apackof2]

I'm concerned about the effects that this will have on the woman. I don't believe in pushing her around, after such a horrible atrocity.

I'm concerned about the effects that this will have on the woman. BABY. I don't believe in pushing her around, she will never be the same woman after such a horrible atrocity, as ABORTION

[tdewey10]

"Anti-choice extremists have targeted South Dakota in their latest attempt to outlaw abortion"

Should this read: "Anti-life extremists have targeted South Dakota in their latest attempt to keep murder legal" ?

[tdewey10]

Aargh. I hate not being able to edit posts.

Shouldn't this read...

[apackof2]

This should be voted on by the people, not a few old men. (Just like the immigration issue should be voted on by the people). Then hopefully get the issue out of politics.

Are you for real?

We have a democratic Republic were we have elect represenatives that make laws

And we can secondly also have petition drives like this to put issues on the ballot

So you consider wholesale genocide to be just a "politcal issue?"