Here's this week's reproductive rights news brought to you by the women of Our Word (and at least one of the guys!). If you see something you find relevant please email it to me, bayprairie at gmail dot com

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This past March the South Dakota state Legislature approved a measure (HB 1233) that established a task force to study abortion and to report its findings to the state Legislature and the governor (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 3/21). The 17-member panel held public meetings for several months to hear testimony from experts on various scientific, social and ethical aspects related to abortion (Calvitto, Rapid City Journal, 12/14). The 2006 state Legislature can use the report when it considers whether to change any abortion-related state laws. This past Friday the task force approved it's report to the legislature.

Abortion Task Force chair disappointed with final report, process

After a contentious meeting Friday, the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion approved a final report that says the 1973 U.S. Supreme court ruling that legalized abortion should be overturned because scientific advances have since demonstrated that life begins at conception. The report says that until abortion is banned, South Dakota should seek to reduce the number of abortions performed by imposing further restrictions, such as requiring that women get more information and counseling before having abortions.

The report will be used by the 2006 South Dakota Legislature as it considers whether to change any state laws on abortions.

Several of the task force members, including those who support abortion rights, walked out of Friday's meeting before the final vote. They said the majority rejected proposals that could reduce abortions by reducing the number of unintended pregnancies in South Dakota.

It seems that the task force was dominated by such extremist elements that even anti-choice members walked out of the report approval meeting. The anit-choice chairwoman, Dr. Marty Allison, who remained in the meeting in order to vote against the report adoption, had this to say:

"The final report was authored by a few people on the task force, and it is less than completely objective and factual. It is biased and opinionated," said Dr. Marty Allison of Pierre.

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"Even though I'm pro-life and it's a pro-life report, I couldn't support the entire document because of those reasons," Allison told The Associated Press.

"The process through which we came to the final report, through our meetings we had, I was disappointed with that. It's not reflective of all the information we spent so much time gathering," the physician said.

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"The mentality of the task force was really an us-against-them mentality - pro-life, pro-choice," Allison said.

Allison said she believes the task force should have approved a proposal requiring the report to include only rigorous scientific research that is accepted by the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American College of Gynecology and other professional organizations.

Evidently the report contains enough bogus faith-based "scientific" evidence to offend even the anti-choice chairperson. Of course there was also outstanding testimony given. One example is that of Lynn Paltrow, Executive Director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW).

Paltrow offered a grim assessment of the harm that 'pro-life'? legislation has done in the name of 'protecting'? the 'unborn.'? She outlined three actual cases in which hospitals successfully advocated for a cesarean section over the objections of pregnant women and their families by using the anti-abortion argument that fetuses are separate legal persons with independent rights.

The first case ends tragically, with the death of the mother and the fetus; in the second, the forced surgery turns out not to have been necessary; and the couple in the third scenario '