The South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families is getting a healthy dose of support from the blogosphere today as the Orange to Blue campaign highlights the efforts to support women’s reproductive rights there. From Daily Kos:

Two years ago, the people of South Dakota went to the polls and soundly defeated
an extremist right-wing maneuver to ban all abortions throughout the
state. But the anti-choice zealots never sleep.  They’ve resurrected
their ballot measure, and although they’ve dressed it up a bit, it’s
still a referendum on whether abortion should be flat-out banned —
with no practical exceptions.

If the ban passes, the women of South Dakota — already grossly
deprived of reproductive health options — would simply not be allowed
to exercise their right to choose what to do with their bodies.  Their
doctors would be unable to provide necessary medical treatment, even if
they deemed it to be critical. And every other woman in America would
have her constitutional right to choose thrown into question, as a law
specifically designed to appeal to Justice Anthony Kennedy would rocket
to the Supreme Court, inviting Bush’s Court to overturn Roe.

 

This news is significant for the sexual and reproductive health community, in the same way that MoveOn.org’s petition efforts opposing the Bush Administration attempts to rewrite the definition of contraception based on an individual’s personal beliefs is — in both cases significant new media organizing are shining important attention on reproductive health issues.

For more information on the South Dakota campaign read Dr. Suzanne Poppema’s article and listen to Amanda Marcotte’s interview with the ACLU’s Sondra Goldschien on this week’s RealityCast.

Our Reality: My Name is Monica and I Had an Abortion, Part 1 from Rewire on Vimeo.