WASHINGTON - February 26 - Today, South Dakota's House of Representatives joined the State Senate in passing legislation that would outlaw virtually all abortions in the state, with dangerously inadequate exceptions for cases where the life or health of the woman is in jeopardy. Kate Michelman, President of NARAL Pro-Choice America, offered the following statement:

"This bill is a direct assault on South Dakotans' rights, and should worry every American who values a woman's right to choose, and the right to privacy which underlies it. If it was upheld by a Court, it would eliminate the right to choose entirely in the Mount Rushmore State, endangering the lives and health of women, and sending doctors to prison for doing what is in the best medical interests of their patients. It could even insert government so far into personal decisions that it would ban widely-used forms of birth control.

The anti-choice movement has not been shy about its two-pronged strategy for overturning Roe v Wade: First, pass bills like this one and force them into the court system, and second, hope that George Bush has the opportunity to put new justices on the Supreme Court who will take the opportunity that these bills provide them to take away reproductive freedom. They've succeeded in the first part of their strategy. Pro-choice Americans must mobilize to protect reproductive freedom."

###