"Healthy Families," Confused Voters
Fighting a draconian abortion ban on the ground in South Dakota.
By Alexandra Berke, Cornell University
Thursday September 7, 2006
Campaigning this summer with the South Dakota Healthy Families Campaign at the Riverboat festival in Yankton, S.D., my canvassing goal was to collect pledge cards from voters who were planning on voting “no” this November on Referred Law 6, a ban on all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest. People were generally cordial—when they told me that “there shouldn’t be any exceptions, abortion is always murder,” they always did it with a smile.
I had never campaigned before in a so-called “red state.” I always imagined the pro-life contingent as a small group of people surrounding an abortion clinic, holding photos of fetuses and yelling about genocide. That, I felt I could handle. But just as I began to feel timid and unmotivated, disarmed by the South Dakotans’ cheerful opposition to pro-choice views, a woman took me aside, double checking that I was against the ban before confiding that she was a rape survivor who had spent years guarding this secret. She was not sure exactly what she thought about abortion, but she was positive that “until you have experienced a dirty old man crawling all over you, you have no right to tell me what to do.” Her experience is exactly the sort of nightmare that the SDHFC tries to share with voters to convince them of the repercussions of this ban.
South Dakota is not often featured on the national stage. The last time it really made news may have been the expedition of Lewis and Clark. But a mere 200 years later South Dakota is back in the headlines because of a heated campaign around state law HB 1215, the abortion ban. The only wiggle room in the ban is that it may be possible for a doctor to perform an abortion if a woman’s life is immediately endangered by her pregnancy.
HB 1215 passed the South Dakota legislature and was signed by Republican Governor Mike Rounds. Activists and regular citizens undertook a state-wide campaign to place a referendum of the ban on the ballot this November. The campaign to put the referendum on the ballot needed just under 17,000 signatures by law to succeed, and collected over 38,0000. From that effort the SDHFC coalition was born.
In contrast to the more common national abortion-rights rhetoric of “choice,” the South Dakota campaign is focused on women’s health, not on debating the politics of abortion. This is a reaction to the state’s social conservatism. Esther Kane Dickinson, a 22-year old canvasser with South Dakota Planned Parenthood, emphasizes the words “harmful, restrictive, extreme, and unsafe” when she speaks to voters about HB1215. Casey Murschel, executive director of South Dakota NARAL Pro-Choice America, tells voters, “This needs to be a legal, medical procedure for people who need it.”
The campaign is focused on keeping a clear, concise message about women’s health and safety, according to Dena Gleason, a 24-year old organizer with the South Dakota Healthy Families Campaign.
But it only takes a few minutes of campaigning with SDHFC to understand how easy it is for the coalition’s message to get muddled. Voters are confused by the “healthy families” name of the organization, and wonder what side the campaigners are on in the abortion debate. Voters also express confusion about the name of the referendum. With nine initiatives on the ballot, it’s hard to remember that Referred Law 6 is the ban on abortion. Voting “no” on Referred Law 6 repeals the ban. According to Dickinson, voters are not well-versed on what each initiative is called, and which vote—yes or no—accurately represents how they feel about an issue. The organizer’s role is “explaining really what the bill says to people. There is a lot of misinformation out there. People are confused. [Campaigning involves] a lot of general education,” Dickinson said.
One example of misinformation being floated by the opposition is that because South Dakota women are allowed access to the Plan B “morning after” pill, the ban does have an exception for victims of rape and incest. “In South Dakota there has been a blending of abortion and contraception,” explained NARAL’s Murschel. Ironically, the very people who generally try to lump together abortion and contraception in order to limit both are now trying to use Plan B as a justification for the abortion ban.
But many South Dakotans are not buying it. They may identify as pro-life, but they view the total ban as overly restrictive. Planned Parenthood’s Dickinson observed, “Everyone has a different idea of what a women’s right to choose means to them. People are in between pro-choice and pro-life.” When campaigning, Gleason of SDHFC tries to demonstrate to voters what this ban would look like on the ground if it is passed. She explains that even in cases where the death of the mother is imminent, the burden is placed on the doctor to prove that the woman’s life was immediately endangered by the child. If the state challenges the abortion, it is up to the doctor to defend his or her work or be convicted of breaking the law. When voters hear these real world repercussions of the bill, “many people say ‘I am pro-life, but there need to be exceptions,’” Gleason said.
At 55-years old, Murschel fears that young women are especially at risk, but will not be able to comprehend the gravity of this ban, since they “have never experienced someone looking them in the eye unembarrassed,” telling them that women are not equal to men.
“As a woman you need to be able to know that you can survive when you have a family,” Murschel expanded. Activists from every organization in the SDHFC coalition emphasized that they were seeing a wide range of volunteers, including an increasing number of young women and men.
“Now more than ever women our age realize this is not a safe area for them. We really have to battle to protect our health—it’s not a guarantee,” said Dickinson.
As organizers, young and old, work to educate voters by framing the issue around women’s safety, there is a fear that the ban, if defeated in November, will come back through the legislature with a rape and incest exception built into the law, thus responding to some critics while still drastically limiting women’s access to abortion. Murschel says she is holding off talking about that eventuality publicly until after the referendum vote. Murschel and other campaigners remain hopeful that discussion surrounding Referred Law 6 will accomplish a lot of the education around the abortion issue that may lay the ground work for the next legislative round.
The mood amongst campaigners is anxious, but they hold onto a real hope that with ample education, voters will view this law as draconian and repeal it. According to a July poll, anti-ban South Dakotans hold an 8 percent lead, with 14 percent undecided. All eyes are on get out the vote operations, with the SDHFC hoping that people take advantage of South Dakota’s early voting procedures to vote early, and vote no.
Alexandra Berke is a recent graduate of Cornell University.
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When logic won’t win, use logical humor. “How many chickens can a conservative South Dakotan eat with breakfast toast and ham?” See the humorous discussion, p.105 of my recent bk, Imagine No Superstition. Humor is often stronger than logic!—Keep up your heroic efforts. Thanks, Dr. Uhl
— Dr. Stephen Uhl - Sep 13, 03:41 PM - #As a school nurse, I saw abused, unwanted & unloved children repeatedly. Not all people are capable of nurturing parenthood. Over 85% of the counties throughout the USA have no abortion facilties. Those well-meaning folks who want to inflict their belief that life begins at fertilization are creating a problem that the conservatives are not willing to address: i.e.,how to provide for these unwanted, unloved & unaccepted welfare babies.
— Lucille G. Goodier - Sep 14, 07:31 PM - #Would men be in favor of abortion if the girl who had an abortion was sent to prison AND HE WAS ALSO?
— Jenny Hurley - Sep 14, 08:48 PM - #I don’t think anyone would be in favor of going to prison. As a pro-choice voter and Planned Parenthood advocate, I resent the implication that all men are forcing these abortion laws on women.
— Joshua Bennett - Oct 3, 04:38 PM - #As another nurse, how can you post your name with a message saying that these unwanted children would have been better off aborted.
— DeAnna Van Zee - Oct 8, 04:16 AM - #I think it is time that we all put aside our political, religious, and emotional beliefs in order to simply educate the population on this bill and its implications. I’m a college student, and in the last few weeks have seen way too many students willing to pledge their vote one way or another simply because of the word “abortion;” we need to explain this bill to them before asking them to decide!
— Heidi Morton - Oct 13, 09:25 PM - #I agree with Heidi, people are making uninformed decisions based on one word. I do not feel that abortion should be used as birth control for those who are simply careless. However, this is not a black and white issue. I cannot say that if I were raped that I could carry to term. And doctors should not have to worry about having to defend their decisions about what constitutes “imminent danger.” I have a friend with a heart condition who has been told by her doctor that if she were ever to become pregnant, she would have to abort because she could not go to term and give birth. But with this bill, it seems she would be forced to attempt the pregnancy and only terminate it when she was just about to die. That is rediculous!
— Jessica Dybing - Nov 3, 10:40 PM - #