By The newspaper
Jun 18, 2024, 02:47 AM EDT
The South Dakota group Life Defense Fund filed a lawsuit to block an abortion rights measure in the November election, alleging various irregularities by the measure’s supporters, as well as invalid signatures and fraud. The group seeks to disqualify or invalidate the initiative.
In May, Secretary of State Monae Johnson validated the Dakotans for Health measure for the November 5 general election. Supporters of the measure had submitted about 54,000 signatures to qualify the ballot initiative.
They did not file an affidavit
The AP reported that Life Defense Fund alleged that Dakotans for Health failed to file a required affidavit for petition circulators’ residency, and left petition forms unattended. Life Defense Fund also objected to many more signatures as invalid, allegedly misleading people about what they were signing.
“The public should carefully examine Dakotan for Health’s comments and carefully consider their credibility. Ultimately, the Court will determine whether such unlawful conduct can result in the measure being placed on the ballot,” Life Defense Fund attorney Sara Frankenstein said in a Monday, June 17, email to The Associated Press.
The measure would prohibit the state from regulating “a pregnant woman’s decision to abort and its performance” in the first trimester, but would allow regulations in the second trimester only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.
Preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman
The constitutional amendment would allow the state to regulate or prohibit abortion in the third trimester, “except when the abortion is necessary, in the judgment of the woman’s physician, to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman.”
South Dakota bans abortion as a felony, except to save the life of the mother, in a law that took effect in 2022 with the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that struck down the constitutional right to abortion under Roe vs. Wade.
The measure drew opposition from South Dakota’s Republican-controlled Legislature earlier this year.
The Life Defense Fund also seeks to prohibit Dakotans for Health and its workers from sponsoring or circulating petitions or doing work on ballot initiative committees for four years.
South Dakota is one of four states, along with Colorado, Florida and Maryland, where measures to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution will be presented to voters in November.
With information from AP
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