The first ads from South Dakota's Campaign for Healthy Families, which is working to overturn South Dakota's draconian abortion ban, have begun to air. Yesterday, NBC's First Read calls it the "most closely watched ballot measure"
Without a doubt, the most closely watched ballot measure on Election Day will be the referendum over South Dakota's abortion law, which bans all abortions except those needed to save the mother's life -- a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade at a time when the Supreme Court has two new conservative justices.This is an important referendum. The sponsor of the South Dakota law, Roger Hunt, law told CNN months ago that he knew the law would be challenged but he figured there would be an anti-Roe majority by the time it reached the Supreme Court:
CROWLEY: The courts will never let this one stand. It will be challenged. That's precisely the point.Those right-wingers are long-term thinkers. But, Roger Hunt didn't expect the voters of South Dakota to overturn his law before it even got to the courts.
ROUNDS: And it will be struck down as unconstitutional at each and every appellate court level, up to the point that the Supreme Court would be the only court left to consider hearing it.
CROWLEY: Roger Hunt has always believed abortion is wrong. And South Dakota has a long history of antiabortion legislation. What gives this particular bill its juice is a reconstituted, more conservative U.S. Supreme Court, and one liberal member Justice John Paul Stevens about to celebrate his 86th birthday.
HUNT: So that means President Bush is probably going to have the opportunity in the next two to three years to appoint a third nominee to the United States Supreme Court.
CROWLEY: As it happens, it will take two to three years for South Dakota House Bill 1215 to work its way up to the high court.
