South Dakota Senate OKs Bill to Outlaw Abortion

Legislation meant to prompt a national legal battle targeting Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion nationwide, was approved Wednesday by the South Dakota Senate, moving the bill a step closer to final passage.

The measure, which would ban nearly all abortions in the state, now returns to the House, which passed a different version earlier. The House must decide whether to accept changes made by the Senate, which passed its version 23-12.

“It is the time for the South Dakota Legislature to deal with this issue and protect the lives and rights of unborn children,” said Democratic Sen. Julie Bartling, the bill’s main sponsor.

The bill, carrying a maximum penalty of five years in prison, would make performing abortions a felony.

Bartling and other supporters said the appointment of Justices John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr. make the Supreme Court more likely to consider overturning Roe vs. Wade.

President Bush might also have a chance to appoint a third conservative justice, they said.

Opponents said the measure was too extreme because it would allow abortions only to save the lives of pregnant women. They said abortion should at least be allowed in cases involving rape, incest and a threat to a woman’s health.

Planned Parenthood, which operates the only clinic that provides abortions in South Dakota, pledged to challenge the measure in court if it wins final approval from the Legislature and is signed by Gov. Michael Rounds.

Rounds, a Republican and longtime abortion foe, has said he would “look favorably” on the ban if it would “save life.”

Other state legislatures are considering similar measures. But South Dakota is the only state to pass such an abortion ban, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization in New York and Washington, D.C.

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, a Washington group that supports abortion rights, said, “This is a clear attack on Roe v. Wade.”