originally written March 20, 2006

by Christine Gates

Last month, South Dakota become the first state since Roe v. Wade (1973) to all ban abortions. 

The legislature of South Dakota beautifully stated that the rights of the mother and the rights of the unborn child are EQUAL.  Hurrah!!!  They further stated in the law that “each human being is totally unique immediately at fertilization.” 

Governor Michael Rounds (R-SD) said, "In the history of the world, the true test of a civilization is how well people treat the most vulnerable and most helpless in their society.  The sponsors and supporters of this bill believe that abortion is wrong because unborn children are the most vulnerable and most helpless persons in our society.  I agree with them."

These are the statements are so simple and in such alignment with our Biblical teachings.  The Legislature and Governor have argued against permissive abortion laws on the basis of equal rights.  It is brilliant!

With a statement like Rounds’, don’t look for any Euthanasia or Physician-Assisted Suicide laws to be coming out of the this great state.  This state values human life in all its forms.

In South Dakota, North Dakota and Mississippi there is only one abortion clinic in each state.  South Dakota performs 800 abortions per year.  Maybe someone could put an adoption agency on either side of the abortion clinic and find homes for those other 800 babies.

Planned Parenthood has to fly physicians into the state to perform abortions.  The physicians within the state will not perform them because of the disgrace and bad reputation attached to the procedures, or killings, depending on which side you’re on.

South Dakota Legislature passed five laws last year that put even tighter restrictions on killing unborn babies, something the Pro-Choice crowd nicely calls a woman’s choice. 

One of the laws requires all physicians to inform women that their choice was a “whole, separate, unique human being."  Luckily, the humanitarian organization and champion of women, children, and families, Planned Parenthood, has filed a lawsuit and blocked the requirement of “whole, separate, unique human being" from the physician’s pre-procedure information while the litigation is on going.

I can’t understand the harm in telling a woman that what she is carrying inside of her womb and about terminate, destroy or kill is a “whole, separate, unique human being" or more simply a baby. 

What is the harm in such a statement?  Is it the mother’s fragile psyche during her predicament?  Or is it the havoc wreaked on a physician’s moral compass that is the issue? 

I know what the harm is… it makes the abortion, the choice, the procedure more like what it really is.  It kills “whole, separate, unique human being[s]” and that is not what anyone inside the abortion industry wants people to think about.

Who could go through with the procedure on the terms of killing a “whole, separate, unique human being”?

Abortions will still be legal in the other 49 United States.  A woman who doesn’t like the law, or who could never live under such a law, is free to move the one of the other states or travel to the other states for an abortion.  (Oh, stop shouting about socio-economic advantage!  I don’t care.)

Conceivably, this restriction could be one way for South Dakota to embrace a way of life that does not conform to today’s liberal ideologies. 

The new law might even drive those who do not embrace the idea of “No Abortions” out of South Dakota, well more power to’em!  That idea is called States’ Rights, a fundamental guarantee given to each state by our U.S. Constitution, but that is another topic.