Update on Abortion in America

Back in March, I blogged on abortion in America and South Dakota's draconian new anti-abortion law.

As I wrote then:

South Dakota, already the toughest state in which to get an abortion, has enacted a law that would make it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion under any circumstance other than saving a mother’s life. That’s right, your daughter gets knocked up as a result of rape or incest and she’s going to have to find a back-alley solution if she has to terminate the pregnancy in that state and then face the prospect of going to jail.

There has been fallout aplenty over the new law. Not surprisingly, three Republican legislators who opposed the law lost in the state primary election last week.

But now, in an interesting twist, the law will not go into effect as scheduled on July 1.
This is because of a little notice provision that the effective date will be held in abeyance if a referendum on the law on the November ballot is approved by voters. Referendum organizers carried the day by submitting petitions with 38,416 signatures — more than double the number required.

The New Yorker has taken notice and has a big piece this week on the South Dakota law. (It's not online, but you can read a Q&A with author Cynthia Gorney here.)

Gorney quotes Neil Fulton who describes himself as a pro-life Catholic:

I think South Dakota is going to be a huge, probably hard education for what I would call the hard-line pro-life forces . . . A lot of people are going to be surprised at what they do when they have to go into that polling place, where no one's watching. How many of them are pro-life themselves but just won't pull the lever in favor of the law?

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Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court says it will rule on a second state abortion law. More here, and Glenn Reynolds offers his take on things on MSNBC.com.