LETTER: Roe v. Wade petition mischaracterized by anti-abortion activists

I am writing in reply to Ann Wipf’s letter telling people not to sign the Roe v. Wade petition.

Signing the petition does not put the abortion amendment into our state constitution. Signing the petition brings the abortion amendment to a vote of the people on the 2024 ballot. The people can then decide if this important decision belongs to a woman and her doctor, or if they are going to give the government the right to make these choices for women and let legislators micromanage how doctors treat their patients.

Many claims about what this amendment would do are false and play on emotions by trying to incite fear and outrage. The amendment says that during the first trimester a woman’s decision to obtain an abortion may not be regulated.

LETTER: Abortion ballot question too extreme for South Dakota

It allows for regulations during the second trimester that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.

It allows for regulation or prohibition of abortion in the third trimester except for cases where the abortion is necessary to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman. Whether this is necessary must be determined by the pregnant woman’s physician based on the physician’s medical judgment.

This is not a “radical abortion petition,” and I think the right to life groups know this. They also know that most people are in favor of keeping the government out of the doctor’s office and personal decisions,  and that they will probably lose should this get to a vote of the people, which is why they are trying to prevent that from happening.

Everyone can read the Attorney General’s Explanation for the initiated amendment and see that it doesn’t legalize late term abortions up until the moment of birth — unless it’s an emergency to save the woman’s life. No woman in the ninth month of pregnancy is going to electively chose to abort her baby at that time. For more information please, go to the Dakotans For Health website.

Sheryl Johnson
Sioux Falls