Well, there's a lot to be said for people voting on things. It's a very democratic thing to do. And I'd love to see the pro-lifers have their noses rubbed in the fact that most Americans don't support such a total ban. But isn't the point of this law to go before the Supreme Court? Isn't the point of having Roe vs. Wade on the books to be that we don't have to fight these battles on a legislature-by-legislature, vote-by-vote basis? Isn't this sort of tactic basically conceding RvW is done - while it's still technically binding precedent?

I thought I'd read that the Supreme Court would be unlikely to reverse RvW all at once, right away like this, and therefore this case should be pushed at the courts in hopes of having further precedent in favor of medical rights. Supposedly the "sane" tactic for the other side would be to chip away at these rights instead of trying - and failing - to abrogate them all at once. They've overreached, and we should take full advantage of their mistake.

Yeah, Pyrian, I wonder about this aspect of the whole SD dustup. Doesn't the Supreme Court decision of Roe v Wade make it legal to have an abortion? Wouldn't it automatically invalidate a draconian law like the SD one? Why should that even go anywhere, much less to the new Supreme Court? If not, just what the hell did Roe v Wade accomplish? I don't get it, and I haven't seen this pretty basic conundrum discussed anywhere. Do we have any law scholars out there who can shed some light on this? How many times must the same battle be fought? If Roe v Wade wasn't a binding precedent, how is it that abortion's been legal all these years?

Oh, and Senator Napoli: May I take this opportunity to wish you a horrific eternity in hell (how I wish I really believed in that foolishness at times like this!).

First to Pyrian. Yes, Roe established in law that the right to privacy includes the right to abortion under the circumstances set out in the majority opinion. But Casey established that the states could not "unduly burden" that right. The practical result of Casey has been that states pass abortion limitation A, pro-abortion groups get an injunction against enforcement of A and it goes to the Supreme Court for a final decision on whether A constitutes an undue burden. But the process all begins in the state leg. So the opportunity for democratic action to prevent or promote A is already there. That pro-abortion groups haven't particularly been fighting the various limitations enacted by states has always struck me as odd, but there it is. So from where I stand, it looks like the SD law is finally going to get pro-choice groups off their behinds and into the political fray.

I think that's a good thing. The SD process will show the anti-choice crazies that choice has support. If the referendum in SD gets on the ballot and wins, the next step will be to defeat Napoli and other ring-leaders when they stand for reelection. That will make these so-and-sos think twice next time.

Relying on Roe has always struck me as tending to make the pro-choice movement passive. By removing the necessity of lobbying, it has left that field open to the anti-choice forces. With nothing to listen to but that, it's not surprising states come out with progressively more restrictive laws. State legislators aren't geniuses; they listen to and absorb the messages of the people who talk to them.

Grassroots political involvement is, at least in my experience, always empowering. The skills you learn in talking to everyday people whose minds may not already be made up are vital to the success of your mission.

Second, I have been involved in petition drives before, and they always benefit from out-of-state people coming in to help with getting signatures. Sixteen thousand may not sound like a lot of signatures, but I suspect in a state as small as SD, it is. So if anyone has the time, you might want to contact the organization in SD to see if they can use your help.

...to find out what SD residents actually think, rather than have them be branded, unnecessarily, by Napoli's crazed statement of an allowable exception.

And perhaps it would not be such a bad thing to have that happen in some other battleground states, as well, before bringing it before the Supremes again. One of the persistent criticisms of Roe is that it bypassed the legislative process, and did not really set the stage, or make the case for reproductive rights, before asking a bunch of mostly white men to rule on it. Collecting signatures and putting this measure up to a vote will at least allow more input from ordinary women (as opposed to activists), input that has been mostly lacking in this debate.

Of course, one hopes that the religious far-right's obvious sway with the SD legislature does not necessarily extend to the voters. And, one really hopes that everyone will vote. Better to know what we're up against than not.

My own intuition is that even if SD residents are more conservative than not, they still won't be willing to let the law stand as-is. The same NewsHour program that featured Napoli, also quoted a number of Republicans who thought the law too restrictive and harsh. In fact, one even went so far as to mention the "fetus viability" issue, which most commentators have not even picked up on. What possible benefit can the anti-choice lobby find in forcing a woman to deliver a terminally defective baby? Yet, that exclusion is also denied by the far right.