The South Dakota Supreme Court has reversed a lower court judge’s decision last month to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to remove an abortion-rights initiative from the November ballot.
On Friday, the court vacated the dismissal order and remanded the case for further trial. The anti-abortion group Life Defense Fund had appealed the decision by Judge John Pekas, who dismissed its lawsuit seeking to invalidate the order.
The group alleged a myriad of wrongdoing linked to the instigators of the abortion rights petitions.
In a statement, Leslee Unruh, co-chair of the Life Defense Fund, said the group was pleased the court expedited the case and sent it back to trial.
“Rick Weiland and his paid team broke laws, induced South Dakotans to sign their abortion petition, left the petitions unattended, and more. Dakotans for Health illegally collected signatures to place Amendment G on the ballot, and this measure should not be on the ballot in November,” she said.
Meanwhile, South Dakota’s top elections official has until Aug. 13 to notify county auditors of what measures will appear on the November ballot.
Mr. Weiland, head of Dakotans for Health, countered that the court challenge is “an ongoing effort by the Life Defense Fund and the right-to-life lobby to keep voters from deciding on this measure, and they continue, as they have for almost 18 months, to do everything they can think of to keep it off the ballot.”
Pro-choice supporters filed petitions totaling about 54,000 signatures in May. Secretary of State Monae Johnson’s office later approved the measure for the ballot.
The measure they want to put on the November ballot would prohibit the state from regulating “a pregnant woman’s decision to have an abortion and its implementation” during the first trimester, but would allow regulations during the second trimester “only if reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.”
The constitutional amendment would allow the state to regulate or prohibit abortion during the third trimester, “except when the abortion is necessary, in the medical judgment of the woman’s physician, to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman.”
South Dakota makes abortion a crime except in cases where it is necessary to save the mother’s life, under a trigger law that took effect in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion.
Abortion rights supporters have won all seven statewide abortion ballot elections since the Dobbs decision. Voters in several other states are also expected to vote later this year.