Earlier this month, the Governor of South Dakota, Mike Rounds, signed a new law that would essentially ban all abortions in the state unless the mother’s life was is in danger. Even in cases of rape and incest, the mother’s life would have to be at serious risk before an abortion could be performed.
In a 2004 poll conducted by South Dakota paper Argus Leader, only 25 per cent of South Dakotans were in favour of such strict limitations on abortion. In spite of this, Governor Rounds has taken it upon himself to implement a law effectively denying women any control over their own bodies.
This law is isolated to the state of South Dakota, but its implications are disturbing. If it is allowed to without opposition, it would set a precedent and could open the door for other states to adopt the same legal stance. This law is unjust.
State Senator Bill Napoli’s grossly insensitive and fetishized rhetoric on the matter is also deeply disturbing. According to Napoli, a woman’s life might be considered to be in danger due to psychological distress after a rape if “the girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated.” Does this mean the psychological distress of a female rape victim who was not a virgin, not religious or not sodomized would be insufficient to grant her a choice?
There is also a difference between “pro-choice” and “pro-abortion.” Pro-choice activists are not expressing enthusiasm for abortion, but rather are in of the right to choose. Rather than denying women the right to choose, abortion opponents should push for more social resources that would make it easier for women to choose options other than abortion.
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