22 Mar 2011 4:13 pm
South Dakota Abortion Bill Signed Into Law By Governor Dennis DaugaardPIERRE, S.D. South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard signed a law Tuesday requiring women to wait three days after meeting with a doctor to have an abortion, the longest waiting period in the nation.Abortion rights groups immediately said they plan to file a lawsuit challenging the measure, which also requires women to undergo counseling at pregnancy help centers that discourage abortions.Daugaard, who gave no interviews after signing the bill, said in a written statement that he has conferred with state attorneys who will defend the law in court and a sponsor who has pledged private money to finance the state's legal costs."I think everyone agrees with the goal of reducing abortion by encouraging consideration of other alternatives," the Republican governor said the statement. "I hope that women who are considering an abortion will use this three-day period to make good choices."About half the states, including South Dakota, now have 24-hour waiting periods, but the state's new law is the first of its kind in having a three-day waiting period and requiring women to seek counseling at pregnancy help centers, said Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.Planned Parenthood, which operates South Dakota's only abortion clinic in Sioux Falls, and the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota said they will ask a judge to strike down the measure as unconstitutional. Kathi Di Nicola, of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, said the law would intrude on women's right to make personal decisions about medical treatment and require women seeking abortions to receive counseling from unlicensed and unaccredited pregnancy centers that are often religiously motivated.We're not even allowed to discuss passing laws that would require a waiting period to buy a gun, or requiring gun buyers to go to counseling first. So why is it okay to deny women their Constitutionally protected right to choose to have a medical procedure when they want one?Someone please tell me again how it's Obama that is the one who is going to come between us and our Doctors?