South Dakota Supreme Court reverses judge’s dismissal of lawsuit against abortion rights initiative

The South Dakota Supreme Court has reversed a judge’s ruling from last month that dismissed a lawsuit aiming to remove an abortion rights initiative from the November ballot.

The court on Friday reversed the order of dismissal and sent the case back for further proceedings. The anti-abortion group Life Defense Fund had appealed Judge John Pekas’s ruling that dismissed its lawsuit seeking to invalidate the measure. The group alleged myriad wrongdoing related to petition circulators.

In a statement, Life Defense Fund co-chair Leslee Unruh said the group is thrilled the court expedited the case and sent it back to the lower court.

“(Measure leader) Rick Weiland and his paid posse have broken laws, tricked South Dakotans into signing their abortion petition, left petitions unattended, and much more. 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,” she said.

The Associated Press emailed a request for comment to Dakotans for Health, the group that brought the measure. Measure backers submitted about 54,000 petition signatures in May. Secretary of State Monae Johnson’s office later validated the measure for the ballot.

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The measure would bar the state from regulating “a pregnant woman’s abortion decision and its effectuation” in the first trimester, but it would allow 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 outlaws abortion as a felony crime except in instances to save the life of the mother, under a trigger law that took effect in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion.

Abortion-rights supporters have prevailed on all seven statewide abortion ballot questions since the Dobbs decision. Voters in several other states are set to weigh in as well later this year.

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Dura reported from Bismarck, North Dakota.