South Dakota pro-life organization sues to take pro-abortion amendment off November ballot

Catholic Vote ^ | June 19, 2024 | Hannah Hiester

[Morgana]

CV NEWS FEED // A South Dakota pro-life organization has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to take a proposed pro-abortion constitutional amendment off the state’s November ballot.

CBS News reported that Life Defense Fund’s lawsuit claims that the circulators of the proposed amendment, known as Amendment G, failed to properly follow election law requirements when gathering signatures on the petition.

According to CBS News, Life Defense Fund claimed that the amendment’s sponsors, Dakotans for Health, didn’t file a required affidavit for petition circulators’ residency. The lawsuit also alleges that the petitioners misled people as to the nature of the petition, as well as claims that the petitioners sometimes did not provide a required circulator handout and left petition sheets unattended.

“The public should scrutinize Dakotan for Health’s comments and carefully consider its credibility. In the end, the Court will determine whether such unlawful conduct may result in the measure being included on the ballot,” Life Defense Fund attorney Sara Frankenstein said in an email on June 17, according to CBS News.

CBS News also reported that Republican Secretary of State Monae Johnson had validated the measure in May. The circulators submitted roughly 54,000 signatures, surpassing the 35,000 needed to place the petition on the ballot. According to Johnson’s office, about 85% of the signatures were considered valid.

The petition was not supported by South Dakota’s Republican-controlled legislature. As CatholicVote reported in February, a state representative even introduced a bill in the South Dakota House that could allow voters to withdraw their signatures from the pro-abortion amendment, after several people approached him and said they mistakenly signed it, thinking it was a pro-life petition.

Though the initiative was passed into law earlier this year, it is not expected to affect Amendment G, according to CBS News.

South Dakota News Watch reported that Dakotans for Health responded to Life Defense Fund’s lawsuit by filing a motion on June 18, asking a court to enforce a 2023 permanent injunction that it claims would invalidate the lawsuit.

If passed in November, Amendment G would prohibit the state from regulating abortions in the first trimester. The amendment would allow South Dakota to regulate abortion in the second trimester, but only in ways related to the health of the mother.

In the third trimester, the state would be able to ban abortion except in cases to save the life “and health” of the mother, according to the judgment of her doctor.

Abortion is currently illegal in South Dakota, except to save the life of the mother.

[No name given]

And I hope the pro lifers and the unborn babies win big time.

[Morgana]

So do I.