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Referred Law 6 Goes Down to Defeat in South Dakota
In March 2005, South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds signed HB1215, a law that banned abortions in South Dakota except for when the life of the mother was in immediate danger. From the outset, South Dakotans expressed uncertainty about the law. The law was proudly trumpeted by its supporters as a near total ban on abortion and drove early impressions and increased fears that the measure went too far. Responding to fears about the harmful consequences of the law, a coalition of concerned citizens collected more than 38,000 signatures - more than twice as many as they needed - to put the measure on the November 2006 ballot for voters to decide. The campaign brought lawmakers, health care professionals, religious leaders, women’s health advocates, and other South Dakotans together in a well organized and disciplined campaign to create a focused and unified effort to convince voters to reject the law. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research conducted polling and focus groups on behalf of the campaign to defeat the measure, which delved deeply into the fundamental concerns about the law and formed the basis for the strategy to overturn it. A couple of key lessons emerged from the research. First, while South Dakota remains a deeply conservative state, both fiscally and culturally, its residents value privacy. South Dakotans expressed unhappiness with government’s attempts to overstep and intrude on tremendously difficult and complex decisions that they believed should be made by a woman, her family, and her doctor. This theme formed a foundation of opposition to the law that transcended partisan, gender, age, and education divides often seen on such issues. Related to worries about government intrusion, South Dakotans also saw the measure as an overreach at a time when voters felt that the state and legislators should be focusing on other issues like jobs, health care, and education. South Dakotans expressed more concern knowing that taxpayers would have to foot the bill for any legal challenges that would be made to the law. Lastly, South Dakotans believed the law went too far; they balked at the idea of implementing a ban that provided no exceptions for women or girls who were victims of rape and incest or women facing serious health consequences. A real discomfort emerged at the idea that the law failed to protect women in these serious and difficult circumstances, leaving them without other options or alternatives. The belief that the law was too rigid and restrictive to be acceptable expanded the opposition. As the campaign began to play out in September and October with paid media - including television, radio, and newspaper ads across the state - supporters of the law waged their battle on several fronts, with messages that at times conflicted. First, they put forth a message that all abortion was wrong and that the law protected innocent babies. Second, they argued that abortion was harmful to women and that the law protected them as well. But they also produced ads that attempted to fool voters into thinking that the law looked out for women and provided exceptions not only for the health of the mother, but also for victims of rape and incest. These disjointed messages failed to persuade voters to support the law. In contrast, the coalition opposing the law ran a disciplined campaign that remained true to a core idea that lawmakers had overstepped their authority in passing a law that took away the rights of women and families to make difficult, private decisions for themselves. Early communications focused on this theme and highlighted the harmful impact on women. In the final weeks before the election, this remained the underlying theme as the campaign refuted misleading claims from the other side. Opponents used powerful arguments from independent sources to reinforce the fact that the law was wrong from the outset and put government in charge of making decisions that should be made by women, family and doctors, even failing to protect victims of rape and incest or women whose health was at risk. In the end, South Dakota voters sided with the opposition and showed that they were unwilling to uphold a law allowing government to intrude into their lives, easily defeating the abortion ban by a 56 - 44 percent margin. Voters sent a clear signal that it is time for government to concentrate on other matters and leave private personal decisions to the individuals who should be deciding them. |
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