Abortion Petition Signatures in Pierre

VoteYesForLife.com, the South Dakota pro-life coalition, submitted nearly 50,000 petition signatures to the South Dakota Secretary of State yesterday.

The petition is for a pro-life initiative to reduce abortions in South Dakota by up to 98%.

Unlike the 2006 abortion bill which was defeated at the polls, this bill contains clearly defined exceptions for rape, incest, the health of the mother and the life of the mother. According to a KELO poll taken during the 2006 campaign, 75% of South Dakotans said they would support a bill that had these exceptions.

Some people who value human life in the womb have expressed concerns that these exceptions could be exploited and abused to once-again return to abortion as birth control, by merely claiming they were raped or claiming the pregnancy might be detrimental on their mental health. However, the exceptions in this measure have been specifically worded to prevent such abuses.

The rape and incest exceptions require that the crime be reported to law enforcement authorities before the abortion can proceed. The abortionist is also required to gather DNA evidence from the aborted child for prosecution of the rapist.

The health exception specifies that there must be a "serious risk of a substantial and irreversible impairment of the functioning of a major bodily organ or system" which could be prevented by an abortion. In making this determination, the doctor must go by "accepted standards of medical practice," and the basis of that medical judgment must be specifically documented in the woman's medical records.

The life exception specifies the abortion must be necessary to avert the death of the mother.

According to the latest abortion statistics from the South Dakota Department of Health, 84.6% of abortions done in South Dakota are simply because "the mother did not desire to have the child."

Those statistics indicate that only 1.5% of abortions are done for health reasons, and 0.4% for rape or incest. By these numbers, the proposed abortion measure would eliminate 98.1% of the abortions currently being performed in South Dakota.

Some say up to 25% of petition signatures may be eliminated in any given petition measure by the Secretary of State's office due to legibility issues, etc. However, with nearly 50,000 signatures submitted, this should leave more than enough to ensure the measure will be voted on by the people of South Dakota in November 2008.

And given the poll results from the 2006 KELO poll, passage looks pretty certain.