The South Dakota Supreme Court has overturned a judge’s decision from last month that dismissed a lawsuit aimed at removing an abortion rights initiative from the November ballot.
On Friday, the court reversed the dismissal and returned the case for further proceedings. The anti-abortion group Life Defense Fund had appealed Judge John Pekas’s ruling, which dismissed their lawsuit to invalidate the measure. The group cited various alleged misconducts by petition circulators.
South Dakota’s top election official faces an Aug. 13 deadline to inform county auditors of the measures that will appear on the November ballot.
An anti choice group in South Dakota is suing to keep an abortion rights amendment off the November ballot, even though all requirements have been met for it to be on the ballot
This week the South Dakota Supreme Court ruled to overturn a lower court’s dismissal of the case and… pic.twitter.com/uxyznfXjLR
— Miranda (@DoomScroling) August 3, 2024
Life Defense Fund co-chair Leslee Unruh expressed satisfaction with the court’s swift handling of the case and its return to the lower court.
Unruh stated, “Rick Weiland and his team have violated laws, misled South Dakotans into signing their abortion petition, left petitions unattended, and more. Dakotans for Health illegally gathered signatures for Amendment G, so this measure should not be up for a vote this November.”
Weiland countered, “This is yet another attempt by the Life Defense Fund and the right-to-life lobby to obstruct voters’ right to voice their opinion on this measure. They have been trying for almost 18 months to remove it from the ballot.”
Measure supporters submitted approximately 54,000 petition signatures in May. Secretary of State Monae Johnson’s office subsequently validated the measure for the ballot.
The measure would prevent the state from regulating “a pregnant woman’s abortion decision and its effectuation” in the first trimester, but would permit second-trimester regulations “only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.”
The constitutional amendment would allow the state to regulate or prohibit abortion in the third trimester, “except when abortion is necessary, in the medical judgment of the woman’s physician, to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman.”
South Dakota currently outlaws abortion as a felony crime, except to save the mother’s life, under a trigger law enacted in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion.
Abortion-rights supporters have succeeded in all seven statewide abortion ballot questions since the Dobbs decision. Voters in several other states are also set to address this issue later this year.