The pro-life movement is at a crossroads and making great progress towards the goal of eliminating abortion. Texas is leading the nation with a law called the Heartbeat Bill that has made its way to the United States Supreme Court. Pro-lifers need to take this moment to fight has hard as the left in supporting state laws that don’t allow abortions when a fetal heartbeat can be detected. This issue is too important to wait.
When Texas passed the new law, the Courts did not comply with the left’s push to block the law. This law that has saved Texas lives and Texas Right to Life fully supported the law. Also, the Texas Catholic Conference fully supported this law. Any pro-lifer with a strategy to save lives would want that law in their state: Texas or any other.
And other states followed Texas’ lead. According to ABC News late last year leaders in the states of Arkansas, Florida, South Dakota, Idaho, Indiana, and Oklahoma have all drafted up and pushed their own heartbeat legislation. There is a strategy in place nationally to get these laws passed in multiple states to forward the pro-life goal of limiting abortion. One state has become a case study in cronyism and personalities getting in the way of good policy.
There has been resistance from Republicans in South Dakota to the pro-life effort that has many national leaders scratching their heads. These pro-life members have blocked legislation that will mimic the Texas law and ban abortions when a fetal heartbeat can be detected. This is a good law for states with pro-life leaders bold enough to take the pro-life fight right to the pro-abortion left.
Sadly, some Republicans in South Dakota are intent on preventing Governor Kristi Noem from attaining a legislative win in an election year, because they want a fellow legislator to replace her in the governor’s office. Cronyism has motivated a handful of the South Dakota legislators to do the bidding of former state House Speaker Rep. Steven Haugaard who is running against Noem for governor. It is shocking that pro-lifers in South Dakota would put personalities before saving the lives of babies.
When you study the arguments of these opponents of the pro-life bill, they don’t hold water. South Dakota Right to Life has joined the Planned Parenthood South Dakota Action Fund to oppose the South Dakota heartbeat bill. You read that correctly – both the South Dakota division of the National Right to Life Committee and Planned Parenthood oppose a pro-life governor’s bill to ban abortions when a fetal heartbeat can be detected. If that sounds ridiculous to you – join the club.
Look no further a Fox News report on February 2, 2022, for the evidence. Fox reported that SD Right to Life Director, Dale Bartscher made the argument that "we were not in support of the governor’s original draft language” while SD Planned Parenthood argued that the governor was “decimating reproductive rights in our state” with this same bill. Adding to the ridiculous way in which some South Dakota conservatives are contorting themselves into opposing a Texas-style fetal heartbeat are the completely different grounds that some South Dakota pro-life legislators are using.
South Dakota Republican legislators are claiming this pro-life bill will slow down the goals of pro-lifers in the state. Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and board member of SD Right to Life, Rep. Jon Hansen, argued according to The Argus Leader, “adopting a fetal heartbeat bill now would be premature given pending litigation between the state of South Dakota and Planned Parenthood in the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court as well as other abortion-related cases expected to impact the standing of Roe v. Wade.” Rep. Hansen and a handful of others actually make the case that somehow this pro-life bill needs to be opposed because it will slow the effort in South Dakota to ban all South Dakota abortions.
When some pro-lifers rely on the Courts to fight their battles, they are laying down arms and giving up. Legislators are elected to legislate – not litigate.
It is truly outrageous when individuals lose sight of an achievable goal and are blinded by distaste for a political opponent. Bartscher, the current head of SD Right to Life, was the political director for Marty Jackley who ran against Noem for governor in 2018. That fact should not be a reason to oppose Governor Noem’s fetal heartbeat bill. The same goes for friends of Steven Haugaard who some South Dakota legislators have served with and want to see in the governor’s mansion. Good policy should always be more important that personal differences. Especially when cronyism prevents a law from being implemented that will save lives.
The South Dakota handling of the fetal heartbeat issue is a great case study in personalities getting in the way of good policy. Americans don’t care whom gets along with whom – they just want good policy.