"National Advocates for Pregnant Women" Refutes Allegations by "Vote Yes for Life" Group
Opinion Editorial
By Lynn Paltrow of National Advocates for Pregnant Women
Rapid City, South Dakota - South Dakota attorney Catherine Ratliff along with Massachusetts's lawyer Connie Rudnick and National Advocates for Pregnant Women today released a letter to KOTA television refuting the false allegations written in a letter to the station by the law firm Murphy, Goldammer & Prendergast, representing VoteYesForLife.com, about a recent television advertisement sponsored by the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families. (See: http://dakotawarcollege.blogspot.com/2006/09/breaking-news-after-television.html
In the attached letter, the attorneys write, “It is our position that the objections of the MGP and VoteYesForLife.com are unsupported in fact and law. First, the broadcast objected to is not a commercial advertisement-it is political speech, encouraging South Dakota voters to vote no on Referred Law 6, and therefore its content is not subject to FCC regulations concerning commercial speech…”
“Additonally, MGP's claim of falsity concerning the phrase 'What about the mother whose health would be seriously threatened' is similarly baseless. First, we note that the allegation the statement is misleading is followed and supported by the contention that there are options for mothers whose lives are threatened. That is NOT what the ad says, and, since MGP quotes the objectionable phrase in the prior sentence, they should know that. It is undisputable that the only exception provided in South Dakota's otherwise blanket ban on abortions is for procedures performed to prevent the death of the mother…”
The letter continues, "MGP's letter on behalf of VoteYesForLife.com appears to deliberately mischaracterize Referred Law 6 as containing an exception for women who have been raped. The letter suggests that because Referred Law 6 does not also outlaw contraception, including emergency contraception, the public should be mislead into believing that Referred Law 6 has an exception to its abortion ban for women who have been raped.
While anti-abortion activists may want the public to believe that emergency contraception and for that matter birth control pills are a form of abortion (apparently so they can be outlawed next) they are not in fact abortifacients. Having access to Emergency Contraception is not the same as having access to abortion services. Emergency Contraception only works if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex or birth control failure. If it is taken then, it significantly reduces the likelihood a woman will get pregnant. While women may have 72 hours get contraception -- under Referred Law 6 -- they will have zero hours to get an abortion if they later discover they need one."
The proceeding is a submitted editorial and not necessarily the opinion of the Black Hills Portal. We welcome your comments, responses and editorials as we attempt to provide the Black Hills readers with a voice in the hills.
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