O2B: We Support the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families

Today, we're adding one of the most important, yet least discussed, campaigns in the country to Orange to Blue. And this is a campaign where every dollar you invest will pay a huge return for every American.

Two years ago, the people of South Dakota went to the polls and soundly defeated an extremist right-wing maneuver to ban all abortions throughout the state. But the anti-choice zealots never sleep.  They've resurrected their ballot measure, and although they've dressed it up a bit, it's still a referendum on whether abortion should be flat-out banned -- with no practical exceptions.

If the ban passes, the women of South Dakota -- already grossly deprived of reproductive health options -- would simply not be allowed to exercise their right to choose what to do with their bodies.  Their doctors would be unable to provide necessary medical treatment, even if they deemed it to be critical. And every other woman in America would have her constitutional right to choose thrown into question, as a law specifically designed to appeal to Justice Anthony Kennedy would rocket to the Supreme Court, inviting Bush's Court to overturn Roe.

That's why we're so proud to announce the latest addition to Orange to Blue: the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families.  The Campaign for Healthy Families is a coalition of doctors, educators, activists, clergy, and everyday South Dakotans from every walk of life who refuse to let the extremists and misogynists force women into the back alleys of Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Yankton and Pierre.  They're doing the work that every single one of us at Daily Kos would do if we lived in South Dakota -- they're standing up for their basic rights, and the rights and health of their mothers, sisters, and daughters. And in so doing, they're stand up up for the rights and health of every woman in America.

It goes without saying that the vast majority of those of us here at Daily Kos are unabashedly pro-choice. But you don't have to be a clinic volunteer to see how deeply wrong the proposed South Dakota ban is, and how cruel it would be to the women of the state.  Quite simply, the proposal would make illegal all abortions, with only the most superficial and degrading exceptions. Under the ban, even a woman pregnant because she was violently raped can obtain an abortion only if she or her doctor immediately report the rape and, subsequent to the abortion procedure, submit a "buccal or other biological sample from the woman, and a tissue sample from the remains of the embryo or fetus, each sufficient to perform forensic DNA analysis" to law enforcement.
In other words, in order to obtain medical care, a woman who has just been violated needs to provide the police with her DNA. So that they can, conceivably, investigate if she's lying.

There are no words.

Likewise, a woman seeking an abortion because of an imminent threat to her health has little recourse. The "health exception" touted by anti-choicers is fantastically vague, clearly does not cover certain serious threats to the well-being of women which can be caused by pregnancy, and provides no safe harbor to physicians.  Doctors facing ten years in prison if they violate the ban will be loath to test the health exception provision. As lawyers for South Dakota's largest hospital -- a hospital that provides no elective abortions -- concluded,

For those instances where a pregnant woman faces uncertain, but potentially very serious health risks, Initiated Measure 11 will require a physician to choose between possibly committing a felony or subjecting a pregnant woman to a higher degree of medical risk than what would otherwise be clinically desired.

The "health exception" is a meaningless attempt to disguise the heinousness of the proposal -- a proposal that, in the words of the Campaign, also requires doctors dealing with medical emergencies "to try to save both the woman’s life and the baby’s life – even if the fetus cannot survive, and even if the steps taken to save the fetus put the woman at risk."

And it's not like South Dakota is a 24-hour abortion-on-demand superstore today. There is but one clinic in the entire state that regularly performs abortions -- and even there, the clinic has to fly a doctor in from Minnesota to see patients.  And the restrictions on abortion in South Dakota are already among the most onerous in the US:

The woman must receive state-mandated "counseling."

The woman must wait at least 24 hours after the state-mandated "counseling" before procedure may be provided.

If the patient is a minor, a parent or guardian of the patient must be notified.

The doctor must offer the woman an opportunity to view a sonogram, and must then record any responses in her permanent medical records.

The doctor must deliver a government-dictated script to women designed to intimidate her and discourage her decision. The mandatory language includes statements of fact which are contrary to all available medical research.

In short, South Dakota women are already starving for reasonable reproductive care. But that's not good enough for the extremists. They want to eliminate it altogether.

And that's why we support the Campaign for Healthy Families. Because it is our moral obligation to preserve for the women of South Dakota some semblance of the fundamental right to personal autonomy over one's body.

But the extremists and the haters know that this fight isn't just about South Dakota. It's about providing Scalia, Thomas, Alito and the rest of the Bush Court the opportunity to overturn Roe and endanger every American woman's right to choose. As the New York Times has written,

The measure is clearly unconstitutional under existing Supreme Court rulings, and that’s just the point. The underlying agenda is to provide a vehicle for challenging Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion.

There will probably not be a court more ripe for an anti-Roe assault for years to come, as Barack Obama will - God willing - appoint the next couple Supreme Court justices. The anti-choice zealots need to press their case now, and that's exactly what the South Dakota ban is intended to do -- to make an end run around Obama and the Democratic majority to the right-wing Bush Court.  Over recent years, the Court has chipped away at the principles underlying Roe, and the South Dakota ban could provide the impetus for a sea change in the Court's interpretation of the right to privacy and the right to choose.  Indeed, a memo by the New Jersey lawyer who played a major role in drafting the ban measure indicates that it was specifically drafted to appeal to Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose swing vote will be critical to any Roe challenge.  Make no mistake -- the South Dakota fight is our fight, and every one of us will be affected by the ban should it pass.

That's why we must support the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families.  

And there are few campaigns anywhere in the nation that you'll get the bang for your buck that you will when you support the fight for basic rights in South Dakota.  Sioux Falls and Rapid City aren't exactly expensive media markets. $25 goes a lot farther for a campaign operating in South Dakota than it does for a coastal state campaign. And when you think about just how crucial this election is, both for the women directly affected in South Dakota and for all the rest of us, it's hard not to give.

2008 is a watershed year. We're poised to win the presidency and massive majorities in the House and Senate.  On the brink of such a historic triumph, we can't allow the most divisive element of the Republican Party win a backdoor victory that could have dire consequences for every American woman. The final element of total domination in November will be putting an end to the dreams of the extremists who want to control women's reproductive rights.  And that fight will be won, or lost, in South Dakota.  Let's not let this one get away.  Support the Campaign for Healthy Families.

On the web: South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families