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Amendment G will pass at a 55% level. GOP stupidity on this issue is neverending. The US voter wants reasonable abortion access, and that is what Amendment G provides. It is quite reasonable in its language. If you are a reasonable person, you will vote Yes, not because you want abortion but because it is a necessary part of healthcare. Even if you publicly oppose abortion, vote Yes anyway.

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Abortion has divided this country for way too long. Unfortunately, when “freedoms” are selective because of a belief or religion of certain people then it becomes an issue for restrictions. Abortion as a means of birth control is abhorrent. Abortion as a medical tool to save a mother is not birth control. It is a medical procedure. One person or group’s beliefs should not restrict the freedom of women to make decisions about their own body. You don’t like abortion? Don’t have one. Otherwise mind your own damn business.

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If government required abortion, you would say it is none of the government’s business.

And it still isn’t.

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President Reagan was correct: “We cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide . . . " I trust women to make their own healthcare decisions in consultation with their healthcare providers--for too long men have been making decisions for women, if they can vote or take out a loan or have a credit card, if today's GOP had their way, women would not only not be able to make healthcare decisions for themselves, they wouldn't be able to vote. https://maganazi.substack.com/p/maga-nazis-want-to-ban-women-from

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Reproductive Rights are healthcare.

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You have the right to your beliefs but you don’t have the right to force your beliefs on others much less put them into law when they take away the power and freedom of women to make their own decisions.

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founding

The letter from Bernie Hendricks, supported by the comments of Maggie Seidel states a heartfelt point of view revering the "God-given innocence and purity of unborn babies," a view that deserves respect. His description of embryonic development generally follows the currently accepted sequence and his data from the Department of Health in South Dakota I have no reason to doubt.

His reliance of Reagan's 1983 declaration presumes Reagan was right to begin with. He wasn't. Reagan framed this as an issue about a "free nation"; it is no such thing. Moreover, in most cases "men" do not make decisions about abortion. Contrary to Reagan's pronouncement, the decision has nothing to do with who is "fit to live", but rather has to do with whether the interests of an embryo or fetus can compel a pregnant woman to continue a pregnancy when she chooses otherwise. For adult humans, one adult - regardless of familial relationship - cannot be compelled by another adult to do something with their body without their consent (the principle of autonomy). What is it, then, about the embryo or fetus that causes you or anyone else to endow it with the extraordinary authority to override the pregnant woman's autonomy and consent about continuing a pregnancy?

Hendricks mischaracterizes Amendment G; it does not provide for a right to abort babies "unending and with no prohibitions." Its language mimics that in the 1973 Roe v Wade decision.

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If men gave birth this wouldn't even be a discussion.

This state makes it ridiculously hard to: 1. get help with healthcare for pregnancies

2. Get help putting food on the table for families

3. Get help finding and paying for childcare.

Why should the same rich, white, people who don't give AF about the people who are already struggling to get by in this state get to use their beliefs to decide when/if women in this state have children that they don't even care enough about to give free school lunches to? THAT is offensive.

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The fact that we're voting on this for a THIRD time here in South Dakota is pretty outrageous. Twice before the people have said they wanted abortion to remain a legal right here. Our legislative body went around us with their "trigger law" and here we are again. Just stop it.

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Meanwhile, in Georgia, a Georgia judge has struck down the state’s 6-week abortion ban! In an absolutely epic ruling, Fulton county Judge Robert McBurney didn’t just repeal the law—but eviscerated it as forcing women to be “human incubators.”

“Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote. Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy, even taking into consideration whatever bundle of rights the not-yet-viable fetus may have.

…It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid’s Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could–or should–force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another.”

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That judge made me proud to be an American.

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I am dead set against abortion, but even more so, I am against anyone or any church or any government telling a woman how to make a decision on her own body. Just like I am against the teaching by some churches against artificial means of birth control or against a man having a vsectomy.

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It’s not the woman’s body getting ripped apart and sucked into a jar during the abortion procedure.

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A pregnant woman is the custodian of a unique and separate human to which she contributed 50% of the genetics. Even in cases where paternity is in question, there is no question who is the mother. Pregnancy is a privileged and temporary role that should be protected by our constitution, not devalued by it. One need not be religious to see that this amendment is an abomination.

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What Bernie, and many others forget is the female impregnated by rape or incest. To him, she is only a vessel, not a human. He, does not offer $ for trauma counseling, pre natal or post natal care. They offer nothing. In sincere at the least. Basically he is supporting “Big Brother” government. No regard for the human condition or consequences.

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Rick, respectfully, your comment is a little unfair. When debating yea or nay on Amendment G, there is no opportunity to "refine" the debate. It's either yes or no on what is pending. I am very opposed to G because it goes too far. If I had the opportunity to re-write it, I would do so allowing genuine health concerns of the mother to be addressed including rape and incest. I would make counseling available. I would have great regard for such matters. I would hope that some day people will put weight on the rights of the baby as well and that personal responsibility before pregnancy would assume its rightful place. Unfortunately, such reasonable approaches are unavailable with G and that is why it should be defeated and we should back up and do it better.

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The current law is cruel and inhumane to the girl/woman and her family. It should be eliminated. Amendment restores sanity to the issue.

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I agree the current state law is not what we should have, however, the Amendment is not the right answer.

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One more thing Rick, look back on the history of our SD laws. You've got the far right religious fundamentalists leading the charge to have a zero abortion situation and now you have the far left with an equally unreasonable and opposite reaction (physics?) (abortion for contraception). It would be better wouldn't it if reason and moral values worked their way back into this issue? It is usually always counter-productive when the extremes dictate the content of our laws.

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founding

Thank you Bernie. We are 🙏

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He's not wrong.

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Well said, Bernie. May God Bless you and your courage. Amendment G is so barbarous it should serve as a unifier — bringing ALL South Dakotans together against it. Everyone guided by a set of morals -atheists included- agrees. G should go down in defeat 99.9% to .1% (leaving room only for the “men” in this comment thread).

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founding

Characterizing it "barbarous" is meaningless without knowing your frame regarding what is barbaric. To suggest, as you did, that anyone with a set of morals agrees on a single view of abortion and laws permitting it, is hard to defend. It presumes there is only one set of morals, one moral plane upon which we should all operate. Anyone at all familiar with the broad philosophic and theological writings on this topic knows that that preumption is untrue on its face.

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It's going to be supported 55% or higher.

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What’s barbarous is the use of a book translated from a translation, edited by a corrupt king, written by goat herders who heard it from other goat herders about mythology from 400 years before the stories were “told” to write laws in the USA.

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