Mass campaign leads to defeat of anti-choice bill

The defeat of Referred Law 6 in South Dakota on Nov. 7 marks a profound victory for pro-choice activists, women and women’s reproductive rights in the United States. The South Dakota vote overturning the extreme abortion ban in that state is a victory not just for these movements, but for the entire working class struggle as well, one replete with important lessons for the battles yet to come.

By a vote of 185,948 to 148,666, or 56 percent against and 44 percent for, voters in the large, conservative and sparsely populated state sent a resounding message that the previously-passed HB 1215—the law which banned abortions even in cases of rape and incest, and with no provisions for a woman’s medical condition—went too far. The vote reflects the many months of hard work and grassroots struggle that pro-choice activists carried out to defend reproductive rights.

This struggle unfolded in a state with a population of only 770,000 residents spread out over 77,000 square miles. About 800 abortions are performed there annually. According to the state health department, 9 percent of abortions are obtained by Native women, which is about the same percentage as the Native American population in South Dakota. In addition to Native women and men, with a population of 63,000, African-American residents along with Latin@s make up just 2 percent of the state’s population.

According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research report on the Status of Women in South Dakota, median annual earnings for women in South Dakota rank last in the country. Ten percent of white women in the state live in poverty while 50 percent of Native American women in South Dakota are poor.

‘Full frontal attack’

HB 1215 was signed into law on March 6 by Gov. Mike Rounds, after being passed in the state legislature in February. In 2005, five other laws restricting abortions were also enacted in South Dakota.

According to Rounds, HB 1215 was designed as a “full frontal attack” on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized a woman’s right to abortion. The law would have made it a felony for anyone to assist a woman in terminating a pregnancy except if the woman’s life was in jeopardy. Physicians would have faced steep fines and prison sentences if they performed an abortion.

The anti-choice forces in South Dakota calculated that Planned Parenthood, which operates the only clinic providing abortions in the entire state, would go to court and force the issue all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where they hoped the new alignment of justices would overturn Roe v. Wade altogether. What they did not expect, however, was that a mass movement of pro-choice activists would mobilize instead to put the law on the ballot to let voters decide. A mass campaign to defeat the law was launched.

Mass mobilization was decisive

A pro-choice coalition called the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families was formed on March 24, less than three weeks after HB 1215 was signed into law. Over 1,200 volunteers in less than ten weeks turned in twice the necessary petitions—38,000 signatures from every county in the state—to have HB 1215 placed on the ballot as Referred Law 6. This mobilization of pro-choice activists did what many thought could not be done. But they didn’t stop there.

SDCHF opened six offices around the state and hundreds of activists and volunteers were organized into the struggle to defeat RL6. They campaigned door to door, did telephone banking, mass mailings and distributions of Vote No on 6 literature at county and state fairs. They raised tens of thousands of dollars in donations and led in the polls as early as July. NARAL Pro-Choice America played an instrumental role in providing significant financial and organizational resources as well as mobilizing activists for the struggle.

In a desperate attempt to keep the abortion ban, the law’s author, state representative Roger Hunt, created a phony corporation in September called Promising Future, Inc. According to the SDCHF, the dummy corporation “was established specifically for the purpose of accepting donations to fund the campaign in favor of the law—on the ballot as Referred Law 6—and to keep those donations secret.” Hunt gave $750,000 to the Vote Yes for Life campaign and refused to identify the donor, violating election law.

Anti-choice advocates conducted a campaign of outright lies, telling voters that the law did provide for cases of rape and incest and health of the pregnant woman. They instituted a phony “we’re the real feminists” campaign that called women who have chosen abortion “victims” and lied that abortion causes mental illness and depression in women, that motherhood is “natural” and other right-wing, anti-woman rhetoric designed to turn back the clock on women’s reproductive rights.

Important step forward

Nationally, other restrictions to abortion were also on the ballot on Nov. 7. Both Proposition 85 in California and Ballot Measure 43 in Oregon, which would have required that young women seeking abortions wait 48 hours while their parents were given written notification, were defeated. On Oct. 30, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the enforcement of a 2005 law in South Dakota which would have required physicians to inform women in writing that abortion would “terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique living human being.” The court agreed that such “governmentally compelled expression” violates the First Amendment.

While the campaign for choice in South Dakota by necessity focused narrowly on RL6 as “too restrictive,” the struggle there nevertheless signals an important step forward for the movement for women’s reproductive freedom.

It remains to be seen what the effect of the pro-choice victory in South Dakota will be, both in that state and nationally. South Dakota legislators may try to pass another abortion ban, this time including exceptions for rape, incest and health of the woman. Currently the U.S. Supreme Court has heard arguments and will decide on the federal, misnamed “partial birth abortion” law. Anti-choice forces, which have been dealt a major setback with the overturn of RL6 in South Dakota, will be carefully assessing their defeat there and planning for the next attack in the unrelenting war against women’s reproductive freedom.

Fighters for social justice, including reproductive rights and anti-racist, pro-affirmative action activists, must redouble their efforts in the period to come in order to successfully combat the many attacks facing working class women and men, especially those in the oppressed communities. Organizing on the ground, as in South Dakota, will be the key to victory.

The writer is a leader of DANFORR—Detroit Action Network For Reproductive Rights—which has organized support for pro-choice forces in South Dakota.