Election 2006

As pre-election campaigning approached its climax, Terry Naasz, Pastor of Mount Calvary Lutheran Church, a Missouri Synod congregation in Brookings, South Dakota, seemed unruffled by the abortion debate raging around him.

“There’s an awful lot of ads on TV and the radio,” he said. “But as far as feeling any pressure, you know, life goes on pretty normal. You’ve got your calls to make and Bible studies to do.”

In this contentious election year, Mr. Naasz’s laid-back perspective seemed to be an anomaly. On Election Day, South Dakotans must vote on Referred Law 6, which aims to activate the law banning abortion that state legislators passed in February 2006.

If passed, South Dakota’s abortion ban will most likely be challenged in court by Pro-Choice groups. Ensuing litigation could lead to a direct challenge of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion in 1973.

Locally, debate surrounding the proposed abortion ban has provoked a passionate response, said Bob Chell, Pastor of the University Lutheran Center at South Dakota State University in Brookings.

Mr. Chell noted that frequent articles in the local papers and numerous yard signs provide daily reminders of the high stakes involved in the upcoming election.

“This issue is one that has a deep emotion,” he said, noting that abortion is an extremely personal issue for most people.

Mr. Chell said he has been approached by organizations who have made “thinly disguised requests” that he tell his congregation how to vote on the issue in the upcoming election.

But Mr. Chell, who is wary of “using the pulpit to beat people over the head,” has been careful not to suggest which side his congregation should favor.

Robert Burns, a Professor of Political Science at South Dakota State University, has followed the abortion initiative closely and agrees that the issue has attracted “a tremendous amount of attention within the state.”

“It has been a very emotional issue for many years, and the ballot has heightened that,” he said.

According to Professor Burns, South Dakota’s abortion ban was carefully formulated as a “test case” for the federal courts, which is why legislators “made sure there were no exceptions included, and that it would be a very strict, very rigid anti-abortion statute.”

The law passed by South Dakota’s state legislature specifies that only abortions “intended to prevent the death of a pregnant mother” would be exempted from the ban. Pregnancies resulting from rape and incest are not explicitly addressed.

Confusion about the ban’s exceptions for rape and incest victims has led each side to accuse the other of spreading misleading information to voters.

“It’s a completely emotional battle here in South Dakota. Not much logic on either side,” said Ken Curley, Editor of The Brookings Register, a daily newspaper that circulates in the southeastern region of the state. Mr. Curley added that “charges of lying, counter charges, confusion about the law” have all been part of the debate surrounding the proposed ban.

According to Mr. Naasz, specific instances of “false advertising” have complicated the debate. For example, even if the abortion ban is passed, Mr. Naasz noted that a woman who has had unprotected sex can take the morning-after pill – a form of emergency birth control that prevents conception, if taken within 72 hours of intercourse.

“The ones who are voting ‘no’ are not discussing that. They just say there’s no options for rape and incest victims. Well there is that small window,” Mr. Naasz said.

But according to Mr. Chell, those who counter the ban argue that it’s misleading to tell voters that the ban contains rape and incest provisions, when the only option it provides is the morning-after pill.

Controversy has also surrounded funding and political activism from groups outside the state.

The Sioux Falls Argus Leader reported that most of the money funding the campaign to ban abortion has come from within South Dakota, while much of the money supporting opposition to the ban has come from outside the state.

As a result, Mr. Chell said, proponents of the abortion ban bemoan the “terrible” effects of “all this outside money.” But those who oppose the abortion ban argue that it wasn’t possible to quickly build a network to compete with the already well-established South Dakota Right To Life organization, without accepting outside funding.

In reality, Professor Burns said, “it seems to be clear that both sides are receiving generously from outside the state.”

Most recently, funding controversies have focused on South Dakota State Representative Roger Hunt, who sponsored the original anti-abortion legislation. Mr. Hunt has been criticized for refusing to reveal the identity of a secret donor who funneled $750,000 – via a corporation Mr. Hunt heads – to Vote Yes for Life, the South Dakota-based organization that has spearheaded the campaign to ban abortion.

But the controversy and clamor surrounding the abortion ban may be misleading, said Kathryn Gustafson, a long-time Brookings resident. She suspects that many South Dakotans are intentionally avoiding the pre-election fray and will instead use their vote to quietly make a statement.

“I think there’s a great silent majority in South Dakota that I hope will carry the day,” she said. “People will come out and say that this is way too stringent and strict.”

Whether or not abortion is banned as a result of Tuesday’s vote, Ms. Gustafson said she expects that people in South Dakota will largely carry on as usual, unmarred by the election’s contentious atmosphere.

“My hairdresser, for instance, is a home-schooler and a fundamentalist Christian,” she said. “I just try not to talk politics with her because I know I’m going to get pissed off and so will she.”