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Doctors group supports ban
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FarkRAPID CITY — Just over a week after a group of South Dakota doctors specializing in women’s reproductive health urged voters to reject Referred Law 6, another group of doctors has formed a group supporting the controversial measure.
Referred Law 6 is an issue on the Nov. 7 ballot that, if passed, would ban nearly all abortions in South Dakota except those required to save a woman’s life.
On Thursday night, a group of South Dakota doctors announced that it has formed to formally support the measure, calling themselves South Dakota Physicians for Life.
“Our group, the South Dakota Physicians for Life, is a very new group,” Dr. Ann Church of Spearfish said. “We come from all parts of the state, from our biggest cities and smallest towns and represent nearly all the medical specialists.”
Church and Dr. Don Oliver, a Rapid City pediatrician, spoke at the news conference.
Oliver announced the group’s goal.
“We are all here as members and representatives of South Dakota Physicians For Life. We are united in our support of HB1215.”
HB1215 was the bill number assigned to the abortion-ban measure when it was filed in the South Dakota House of Representatives. Now that it has been referred to a statewide vote, it is Referred Law 6 on the ballot.
Oliver also made several points he said would “clarify some of the issues surrounding abortion.”
Those issues include when life begins, the effect of abortions on post-abortive women and clarifications of the law itself, which would charge physicians with a felony for performing any abortion except those needed to save the pregnant woman’s life.
“A genetically unique, separate human life begins at the moment of conception,” Oliver said. “An abortion, therefore, destroys a unique human individual that can never be replaced.”
He went on to describe problems of post-traumatic stress disorder, alcohol abuse and other behaviors in post-abortive women.
“Since abortions have become so widespread and common in our society, there are now millions of hurting men and women in our society,” he said.
Oliver said that South Dakota doctors wouldn’t be hurt by Referred Law 6 because they don’t do elective abortions.
“No South Dakota physicians do elective abortions; therefore no South Dakota physicians would be prosecuted by Referred Law 6,” he said.
Last week, the South Dakota Section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which represents more than 70 obstetricians in the state, urged voters to reject the law.
The group said the abortion ban is based on faulty science, robs women of their legal rights and criminalizes a reproductive health-care option.
Dr. Marv Buehner, a founder of the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, responded to the South Dakota Physicians For Life announcement by saying that any South Dakota doctor who is in favor of Referred Law 6 is in the minority.
He said an internal poll by the state medical association indicated that 70 percent of South Dakota doctors oppose to the ban.
“These physicians have a right to their opinion, but they are in a distinct minority,” he said.
He disagreed with statements made by Oliver during the news conference, such as Oliver’s assertion that life begins at conception.
“There are two conflicting values here,” he said. “One is the value of that life that begins at conception and the other is the value of a woman to make her own health-care decisions.”
In addition, he said that women who are forced to carry a pregnancy to term will suffer just as many problems as a woman who aborted her baby, as indicated by studies from the American Psychiatric Association and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
“If you compare women who terminate an unwanted pregnancy to women who are coerced into carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term, those psychiatric problems are no different.”
Buehner also said that the law would indeed put South Dakota doctors in legal danger because it would prohibit medically necessary abortions. HB1215 lacked exceptions for abortion to preserve the health of the pregnant woman or in cases of rape and incest.
He said abortions done to alleviate a woman’s medical problems are done by South Dakota doctors, not out-of-state doctors.
“Those are medical abortions that are done by OB-GYN’s across the state in the community hospitals, and they are not done by out of state physicians,” he said.
Buehner said those types of abortions are a necessary part of medical care in South Dakota.
“They are not the majority of abortions done, but they are an important part of the medical care in the state,” he said. “And those would be just as criminal as the elective ones.”
Church maintained the points Oliver made during the news conference.
“I think we hear a lot of talk sometimes about (how) abortion should be rare but safe,” she said. “I think this bill fits that. It fits it to a T.”
Contact Ryan Woodard at 394-8412 or ryan.woodard@rapidcityjournal.com
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