State Supreme Court revives legal challenge to abortion-rights ballot measure
The entrance to the South Dakota Supreme Court at the state Capitol in Pierre. (Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight)
An anti-abortion group won the latest round in a court battle over South Dakota’s abortion-rights ballot question.
The Life Defense Fund is attempting to disqualify the measure from the Nov. 5 ballot. A circuit court judge in Minnehaha County dismissed the group’s lawsuit last month. But on Friday, the state Supreme Court reversed that decision and sent the case back to the circuit court for further proceedings.
A sparsely worded order signed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Steven Jensen said “the circuit court erred in dismissing the matter.” The lower court had ruled that the Life Defense Fund should have targeted the South Dakota Secretary of State’s Office with its litigation instead of Dakotans for Health, which is the group that petitioned the measure onto the ballot.
Although the Supreme Court ruled for the Life Defense Fund on that issue, the high court denied the group’s request for a new circuit court judge to be assigned to the case.
Leslee Unruh, co-chair of the Life Defense Fund, hailed the reversal of the circuit court’s dismissal. She signaled the group’s eagerness to continue pressing its claims that Dakotans for Health failed to follow all of the state’s laws governing the circulation of ballot petitions.
“Dakotans for Health illegally gathered signatures to get Amendment G on the ballot, therefore this measure should not be up for a vote this November,” Unruh’s statement said, in part.
One of the Life Defense Fund’s allegations is that Dakotans for Health failed to abide by the requirements of a 2018 state law. The Republican-dominated Legislature adopted the law to prevent out-of-state residents from circulating ballot petitions in South Dakota. Among other things, the law required petition circulators to file a sworn statement with various pieces of information proving their residency.
Dakotans for Health has argued that the 2018 law was invalidated by a series of court decisions that struck down restrictions on ballot petition circulators.
Dakotans for Health Chairman Rick Weiland said his group will fight to keep the abortion-rights measure on the ballot.
“This is just another hurdle put forth by a desperate campaign attempting to stop the will of the voters,” Weiland said.
The Secretary of State’s Office validated the abortion-rights ballot petition in May, after using a sample to estimate that 46,098 of the petition signatures were from registered South Dakota voters, surpassing the required 35,017.
Abortions are currently banned in South Dakota, except to “preserve the life of the pregnant female.” The ballot measure would legalize abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy but allow the state to impose limited regulations in the second trimester and a ban in the third trimester, with exceptions to protect the life and health of the mother.
As the legal fight continues, the clock is ticking toward a Sept. 18 deadline for ballots to be printed and in the possession of county auditors’ offices.
South Dakota Searchlight’s Joshua Haiar contributed to this report.
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