South Dakota Initiative Aims at Overturning Abortion Ban

Opponents of South Dakota's ban on nearly all abortions on Friday announced the launch of a ballot initiative aimed at overturning the new law.

 If the South Dakota Campaign For Healthy Families collects 16,728 signatures, the law -- a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade -- automatically will be placed on hold. 



 State Sen. Elaine Roberts said at a news conference in Sioux Falls that legislators went too far when they passed their bill last month banning abortions even in most cases of rape and incest. 



 Proponents of the ban welcome the challenge, and said the measure to reverse the ban would fail at the polls. 



 "I know South Dakota politics," said Leslee Unruh, president of the Abstinence Clearinghouse in Sioux Falls and a prominent anti-abortion activist. "The people of South Dakota stand for life, for protecting an unborn child." 



 South Dakota is one of several states that opened the year mulling a strict ban that would contradict Roe v. Wade. Some anti-abortion activists hope that President Bush's two Supreme Court appointments could lead the court to overturn the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case that legalized abortion. 



 The legislature overwhelmingly passed the bill last month, and South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds signed it into law shortly afterward. 



 With opponents and proponents of the ban each releasing polls in recent weeks showing the majority of voters as being on their side, abortion-rights advocates had been debating whether to challenge the law in court or at the ballot box. 



 Some prominent state Democrats were leaning toward a ballot challenge. This week they unveiled a bipartisan group -- led by a former Republican state legislator -- to move the initiative campaign forward. Planned Parenthood, which operates the only abortion clinic in the state, also is involved. 



 "We don't want it to be seen as a partisan assault on the ban," said Jeff Masten, a former chairman of the state Democratic Party who is involved in the campaign. "That legislation simply went too far." 



 Matt Michels, speaker of the South Dakota Assembly and a Republican who backed the ban, predicted that organizers will easily collect enough signatures to place it on the ballot due to the state's low threshold for voter initiatives. He also forecast a campaign financed by big-money donors on both sides of the issue that would saturate the airwaves of the lightly populated state.