An anti-abortion group in South Dakota has filed a lawsuit to block an abortion rights measure from appearing on the November ballot. The Life Defense Fund alleges various wrongdoing by the measure's supporters, including invalid signatures and fraud, and seeks to disqualify or invalidate the initiative.
In May, Secretary of State Monae Johnson validated the measure by Dakotans for Health for the November 5 general election ballot. The measure's supporters had submitted about 54,000 signatures, surpassing the required 35,000 signatures. Johnson's office deemed approximately 85% of the signatures as valid based on a random sample.
The Life Defense Fund claims that Dakotans for Health failed to file a required affidavit for petition circulators' residency and that petitioners did not always provide a required circulator handout, leaving petition sheets unattended. The group also objected to numerous signatures as invalid and alleged that petitioners misled individuals about the content of the petition they were signing.
The measure, if passed, would prevent the state from regulating a pregnant woman's abortion decision and its effectuation in the first trimester. However, it would allow second-trimester regulations only if related to the physical health of the pregnant woman. The amendment would permit the state to regulate or prohibit abortion in the third trimester, except when necessary to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman.
South Dakota currently outlaws abortion as a felony crime, except in cases to save the life of the mother, following the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs decision that overturned the constitutional right to an abortion under Roe v. Wade.
The Life Defense Fund is also seeking to ban Dakotans for Health and its workers from sponsoring or circulating petitions or engaging in ballot initiative committee work for four years.
South Dakota is one of four states, along with Colorado, Florida, and Maryland, where measures to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution will be decided by voters in November. There are petition drives in seven more states to add similar questions.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, there have been seven statewide abortion-related ballot measures, all of which have been won by abortion rights advocates.
